


Inside Out

by DratTheRat



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Massive Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Bad Things Happening to Poor Cuthbert, Bittersweet, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Internal Monologue, M/M, Magic, Mostly Gen, POV Multiple, Rare Pairings, Sacrifice, Susan Lives, Time Skips, Underage Prostitution, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-02-08 12:17:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 52,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18623137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DratTheRat/pseuds/DratTheRat
Summary: When things start over, sometimes all the bits and bobs don’t come together right.  On one level of the Tower, this:





	1. Steven - in Battle

**Author's Note:**

> What if _The Dark Tower_ were a tiny bit less like _The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly_ and a tiny bit more like _The Lord of the Rings_? It’s like that part in David Cronenberg’s _The Fly_ where he tries to teleport the baboon - but way less gross, I promise. Still a little gross, though. Don’t forget to read the tags and warnings. 
> 
> Now complete!

_An Introduction_

By now, Steven’s own archers had picked up so many black feathered arrows that he had been forced to admit determining their source might be impossible. When he had asked Jamie DeCurry about them, the young gunslinger - who in the absence of a more experienced yeoman among their dwindling ranks had become his archery master - had stroked the one that Steven brought him fondly, smiled his damned unreadable, closed-lipped smile, and replied, “They’re very nice,” by which, presumably, he meant they were well crafted, which they were.

Of course, the black feathered arrows were the least of Steven’s problems, but they were a curiosity, and Steven, who had never enjoyed riddling for its own sake, liked mysteries that followed him in battle even less. Even now, some archer behind him was shooting the accursed things. The fellow was a first rate shot, and, before his own bloodlust could overtake his mind, Steven filed that fact away for when the carnage ended. If Jamie could identify that archer from his post or his precision, Steven might do well to balk tradition and endow that lowborn, nameless man with guns, should he survive. Chris Johns’ were waiting for an owner.

And Robert Allgood’s, too, perhaps. The battle was going worse than usual. Steven’s troops were stagnating, unable to advance, and, now, in the corner of his eye, he saw his childhood companion fall, a spear through his left shoulder or his heart. 

The enemy who threw the thing was dead before Steven could shoot - one black feathered arrow in his throat, another in his eye. The rapidity of shots, the quantity of those damned arrows . . . the archer behind Steven was not one of Jamie’s shooting salvaged sticks; he was their source.

Barely in time, Steven fired each of his two guns two times and took down three huge approaching wildmen barely clad in straps of leather decorated with the teeth and horns of animals. He cursed the arrows and himself - again! - for his distraction and was about to put poor Robin out of his head, too, when a man he thought at first that he had never seen before leapt nimbly to Robert’s side. 

He was a young man, slender, clad mostly in deerskin, and his long, dark hair fell forward to obscure his face. Almost absently, he felled one final enemy with one of his black feathered arrows before kneeling over Robert’s wounded body, head low, back arched in a shielding position. In the same moment, another, broader man in a long, hooded cloak strode forward, bracing one leg on a heavy staff. Although he lacked the archer’s agile quickness, his pace was swift and steady, and he stopped in front of Robert and the lanky youth and slammed his staff onto the ground.

The notion that he ought to mimic the cloaked man’s friend’s position came too late, and Steven was knocked from his feet by the resulting blast, which shook the battlefield and leveled its combatants. But, while Steven and his compatriots fell down, their enemies fell back, thrown fifteen feet or more away from where they all had stood before. For several, this was fatal; they came down on their necks or backs in such a way that broke their spines or brought them down upon their swords or spears. 

The cloaked man glanced down at his hunched companion. “Again?” Steven thought he heard him ask.

The dark haired archer nodded up at him, and Steven made himself into a ball before the next blast hit. When he looked up again, the enemy troops still whole enough to rise and stand were all in flight. 

The day was won again, but at what cost? Steven had read about but never witnessed magic of this caliber, and he knew exactly where the ancient books that held those lost secrets had gone. It seemed that his preoccupation with the black feathered arrows had not been unfounded. The blasted things were symptoms of his personal frailty: Steven’s rash anger and his grief had made the archer and the wizard. 

Now, there was no price upon their heads. That useless, misguided incentive he had lifted years ago. 

Now, there was no Gilead from which to exile them in rage. 

Now, Steven was in their debt.


	2. Cuthbert - Expelled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bad Thing #1

_Nine Years Earlier_

Cuthbert's report to Roland's father did not go over well, and he was not surprised. He was too grieved himself, too guilty to bloat his stilted explanation full of artful excuses for his dear friend's death. When he had finished speaking, he found himself hauled bodily down the stone steps of Castle Gilead, Steven Deschain’s grip a painful iron manacle around his wrist.

Deschain tugged at him brutally, but Cuthbert still had pride enough to make sure not to stumble on the steps. With the exhaustion of hard battle and prolonged flight and his own suffocating grief, it took all of the concentration he could muster. Behind, he thought he heard the more measured steps of his own father and Alain’s and their teacher, Vannay the Wise, and, of course, Alain himself, who had been afforded no opportunity to present his own account of their tragic adventure before their punishment began. Cuthbert wanted badly to look back at him, but he kept his eyes on the path in front of him until they spilled out into the brightness of the courtyard.

There, Steven Deschain turned to face him. His right hand still clutched at Cuthbert’s left wrist, and now his left came up to fist in Cuthbert’s shirt, which was already stiff with sweat and dirt and blood. Deschain pulled his dead son’s friend close to his lips and snarled in his ear, “I will not have your blood sully my floor.”

Cuthbert took a deep and calming breath in through his nose, which was still straight and fine in spite of his violent upbringing. The first blow broke it. Blood gushed from his nostrils down his chin and flooded his sinuses until he had to open up his mouth to keep from choking. 

This was not his first beating, to be sure. Cort, who trained the boys born to the gun in combat and survival, was a firm believer in the power of the fist and rod and used both liberally in his lessons. Although such brutal punishment had done nothing to quash Cuthbert’s brazen spirit, he allowed that he remembered still the reason for each violent correction rather better than the fist and rod that followed. 

This time, however, no correction was intended. There was no learning opportunity. Deschain was not testing the mettle of Cuthbert’s soul to see if he would break his will or strengthen it; he was incensed with grief. Cuthbert had been charged, at least in part, with keeping Roland safe, and he had failed in that task. With no one more at fault nearby to punish for the loss, Deschain set out to break his son’s friend’s body, will and soul be damned. 

For his part, Cuthbert took such retribution gladly. Deschain was right - he had failed Roland. Try as he might, he had never been able to convince him not to get mixed up with Susan and her delicate position, and then, once they had reconciled and focused their attention on the threat of Farson’s allies, when Sheemie came with the bad news of Susan's capture, he had not been able to prevent Roland from riding from the battlefield, leaving Cuthbert and Alain to carry out their plan alone. Would that Bert had gone instead! In spite of everything, he would have given his own life so that Roland could live. How happy his friend would have been to know he had a child on the way! 

Grief, exhaustion, bludgeoning, and lack of blood made him light headed, and each successive blow came as an answer to a prayer. He thought he could see Roland standing in the Clearing at the End of the Path, tapping his foot impatiently as Cuthbert lagged behind. “I will come if ka wills it,” Cuthbert mumbled at Roland’s shadow. He remembered ranting once about ka’s whipping boy and began to laugh hysterically. The sound his laughter made was like a hiccup choked inside a scream.

“You’ll kill him!” Alain cried, jarring Cuthbert from his fantasy. 

Cuthbert laughed harder still. Was not that the point? Gasping, he inhaled a slime of mucus mixed with his own blood and succumbed to a convulsive coughing fit. Deschain threw him to the ground, and Cuthbert landed in a sloppy crouch next to his foot. Eventually, he hacked up a bloody ooze and watched it dribble from his lips and nose into the grass. The flesh around his left eye was already so swollen he could barely open it.

Alain went on: “Roland made his own bed, heedless of Cuthbert’s council! And we were sent into a nest of traitors to your rule, besides!”

“Insolent whelp! If he should die you will be there to meet him!”

Cuthbert woke up. He may have failed Roland, but Alain needed him still. Dear Alain, who cared for him enough to risk the wrath of Steven Deschain when Cuthbert, least esteemed by him even as he was best loved by Roland, had been well prepared to take the brunt unto himself. These thoughts were instantaneous. In the moment Deschain’s right hand reached for his gun, Cuthbert lunged to throw his shot off course. 

His reach was clumsy and off balance. His left eye was now swollen shut, his grieving, tired mind was further addled by his beating, and one of Deschain’s blows at least was playing havoc with his inner ear. And yet, he was still fast enough to wrap his left hand around the barrel of the big revolver and yank it down with all his weight.

In that left hand, pain exploded, and he lost his grip. His downward inertia sent him sprawling on his face. Deschain cursed him, and his hard, wooden heel came down on Cuthbert’s injured hand. To him, the splintering of bone became the crackling of kindling devoured by a bonfire. Cuthbert cried out and felt the sting of tears well up behind his eyes, but he was not ashamed because, when he looked up through the blur, he saw the shot had pierced through Alain’s lower leg instead of finding a home in his chest. He met his friend’s wide, clear, blue eyes and smiled.

A great commotion now ensued. Cuthbert thought he heard Deschain declare that they would be sent West, as was the custom when a boy tried and failed to win his guns. This sentence was not inappropriate; had Roland lived, Alain and Cuthbert might have been proclaimed gunslingers, having proved themselves in battle. As it stood, the cost of victory had been too high. That Susan had survived to carry Roland’s unborn child back to Gilead was not enough. 

Two strong hands hauled Cuthbert to his feet. It was his father, he realized; he recognized the feeling of his grip. For a brief instant, he gave in to the temptation to lean back against his familiar body, and for the same moment, his father held him tight in something close to an embrace. It took most of Cuthbert’s remaining strength to pull himself upright before his father had to push him away for appearance’s sake. Dutifully, Robert Allgood dragged him toward the city gate, and, this time, Cuthbert did stumble; his stomach and his head were swimming, and his vision was impaired. He had the vague impression of a crowd lining the street as they passed by and a clearer impression of Alain limping along with him, supported by Christopher Johns. 

Their fathers took them a good hundred yards outside the city gates before they let them go. Without his father’s strong, propelling arms, Cuthbert at first failed to stand, and Alain had to hunker down and draw him back up to his feet. They were lucky - Alain’s wound was in his left calf, so, when they were both standing once again, Cuthbert was able to take Alain’s left hand in his uninjured right and lend his own right leg for his support. He barely heard the ceremonial gunshot or the cries of “Exlie!” and “On pain of death!” as he wrapped his arm around Alain’s and limped with him along the road as quickly as was possible until they reached a place where a tall grove of trees ran alongside, sucking up water from a little stream. There, they ducked down into the little wooded furrow, out of sight.

“We are too close to Gilead,” Alain warned as they made their clumsy, painful way down to the water’s edge. “But out of sight is out of mind, and we need rest and succor before we can travel on.”

“Right then,” Cuthbert slurred, “you first. You have a bullet in you.”

“Fuck that!” exclaimed Alain. “This first.” Now it was his turn to grasp Cuthbert’s abused left wrist. He plunged his hand into the running water. The little stream turned red.

Cuthbert stared down as the water began to clear. The tips of the three long fingers on that hand were missing, but they were bleeding very little anymore; proximity to the powder explosion must have cauterized the wound. His littlest finger had escaped the gunshot, but it was badly mangled from the heel of Deschain’s boot, as was his shortened ring finger. Only his thumb remained intact.

“Keep that there,” Alain commanded.

Cuthbert leaned on his good hand and stared down at his mutilated one. Carefully, he lowered his face into the water and let it cool his wounds and begin to wash away the blood. It felt wonderful.

None too gently, Alain yanked him back by his hair. “Fucking Jesus, don’t you leave me now!”

Cuthbert fumbled for his words. Usually, they came so easily. “It felt good,” he said, inanely.

Alain grabbed him by the chin. It was bruised but not nearly so badly bludgeoned as the upper left side of his head. “Don’t you dare die, Cuthbert.” 

There was a hole where his surname, Allgood, should have been. That name was not allowed him, now. Nevertheless, Cuthbert nodded into his friend’s hand. He ran his tongue around his mouth. Some teeth seemed to be missing.

“Say it,” Alain prodded. Cuthbert felt him jam his touch into his mind, not placing a thought there, but searching. Searching for suicidal thoughts?

“I’ve lost some teeth,” said Cuthbert.

“Aye, I’ll wager so,” Alain agreed. “Hold still.” 

The hand on Cuthbert’s chin slid up around the left side of his face where his wounds were most serious. Very gently, he covered Cuthbert’s bloody bruises with his palm and closed his eyes. Again, the touch came, this time gently as the hand upon his wounded face. A calming influence flooded Cuthbert’s mind, better even that the cool flow of the stream.

He made another effort to connect his thoughts up with his tongue. “I do not wish to die, not anymore,” he managed, “but I have no purpose now that he is gone and Gilead is shut.”

Alain opened his eyes and smiled. “We will find you one in time. This first.”

With care, he lifted Cuthbert’s injured hand out of the water. He was shirtless now, Cuthbert realized, and he used the body of the discarded garment to blot the hand dry. Then, he held a bit of wood up against the left extremity of Cuthbert’s palm. It was just wide enough to brace three of his fingers. “Hold this here.”

Cuthbert used his good hand to secure the stick in place as Alain tore pieces off of his own sleeve and bound his broken little finger, his broken and truncated ring finger, and his good but partly severed middle finger to the bit of wood. Then, he took another strip of sleeve and wrapped it around Cuthbert’s damaged index finger, too, until his whole left hand except his thumb was sealed in a bandage.

“Thank you,” Cuthbert said. “Now you? Can you undress, or do we need to cut them off?”

“Let us hope I can undress,” Alain said darkly. “All of our arms are gone.”

“Arms gone,” Cuthbert echoed, turning his bandaged hand around to look at it more closely. “Our arms are gone, Alain.” He grinned.


	3. Susan - Rescued

Susan woke to a nightmare. 

Each time she regained consciousness, she suffered from a moment when she was so certain that reality was only a bad dream. Suffer was not the word: those fleeting delusions gave her hope, which wakefulness soon stripped away. Truth flayed her; then, the suffering began.

How could it be true that, when she was almost seventeen, the people in the village she grew up in tried to burn her at the stake? Each time she woke, she remembered with renewed horror how she had been close enough to feel the flames before her lover came and lifted her, still bound, from the villagers’ wagon and swung her across his saddle. How the villagers had swarmed them, pulled the stirrups, tugged his garments, toppled him down from his horse’s back. How, on the ground, he shot at them, but there were far too many, and the pyre was already blazing bright. She had thought he would die with her then, and with their unborn child, and they would be a family in some peaceful afterlife. 

She remembered how his boots had bubbled when they forced him deep into the flames. How he had whistled, loud and shrill, and how the horse reared up and fled and broke the ranks of villagers. How Rusher had not thrown her off because her bonds were looped around the saddle horn, but the force of tension on the rope had snapped her wrist, and her whole body had been so mercilessly battered by the helpless ride that she lost consciousness.

The times that she had woken since were blurs except for one: Then, she had been on horseback once again but, this time, balanced awkwardly side saddle tight against a solid chest and straining arm. Not far off, gunshots sounded, and a boy’s voice, very close behind her head, hissed, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” 

“What’s going on?” she’s sure she said. Her memory of this was likely clearer than her spoken words had been. And yet, the boy had asked her if she could ride on her own, and she had promised, “Yes.”

Susan had been riding since she could walk, and she had ridden then until her woozy head and broken wrist, which had been fitted with a makeshift splint while she had been unconscious, could no longer take the strain. While she had held the reins, the boy behind her had swung acrobatically around to face their enemies head on. Her ears had been bombarded by the cracks of his revolvers as he shot until his shells were gone. Then, he had spun around again and pressed himself against her back and wrapped both arms around her waist so that their weight would be as one as Susan urged the horse on through the night. Only when she was ready to faint did she urge him to take the reins so she could lean against him once again and fade into deep sleep.

Miraculously, she did not think that she had lost the baby.

This time, Susan woke up sick. There was a bedpan next to the bed, so she was able to turn onto her side and vomit into it without making a mess. That was the highlight of her afternoon. 

While she retched, a tall, elegant woman swooped in to mop her brow and hold her long, blonde hair. “So it is true,” the woman said. “You are with child.”

Susan hacked a last drizzle of bile into the pan and laid back in exhaustion. Her whole body ached, but she felt a thousand times better than those last several instances when she had been awake. She blinked at the woman for a long time before she answered.

The woman waited patiently with a kind expression on her face. Because she was dressed in a long, richly made, black gown, Susan assumed that she was not a nurse. She was about Susan’s late father’s age and very lovely with large, beautiful brown eyes that reminded Susan of her Roland’s friend, the pretty, spirited one who had struck him in the face because of her. They had reconciled, Roland had said, and it must have been the truth. It must have been he who had held her on his horse; he seemed more acrobatic than Roland’s other remaining friend. She longed to see them both - they had been kind and friendly in the end. With Roland and Susan’s own father dead, these two were all that she had left. They were her last connection to the father of her child.

“I am with child,” she admitted. “Where . . .”

“Is it Roland’s?” the woman demanded. She leaned closer, dark eyes eager, bright with unshed tears.

“Aye,” Susan agreed. “‘Tis Roland’s. Wh . . .”

The woman threw her hand over her own mouth, and now her tears did fall.

Susan blinked at her again. She had not wept for Roland yet. There had not been the time to indulge that luxury. Her heart clenched painfully, but she pressed on. “Where are his two companions? I would see them now.”

“Oh, God!” the woman cried. She continued to weep and turned her face away.

“I cry your pardon,” Susan pressed again. “I can’t remember their right names. Arthur Heath and Richard Stockworth? There was some strife between them, but I know they reconciled in the end, before the battle, and one of them, at least, must live - he held me before him on his horse. The slender, dark eyed one, I think. Are you his mother?”

The woman choked a little and composed herself. “I am not,” she said, “but we are . . . we were kin. It is an easy mistake to make.”

“Were?” whispered Susan. “Did he fall in the battle? It must have been the other boy who held me, then, and brought me safely here. The fair one.”

“No.” The woman was all business now, her expression hard and cold. She had packed her tears and her emotions all away where Susan could not see them. “No, it was Cuthbert Allgood that was, who bore you on his horse. Both he and Alain Johns that was still live, or so they did a hour or two hence when they were exiled from the city. Roland’s father did not take kindly to their failure to keep our child safe, and they paid dearly, nearly with their lives, so rumor says, before the exile was decided. I do believe they live, but their names and citizenship are forfeit. You will not see them again. I . . . I am Gabrielle Deschain, and Roland was my son.”

“And you and yours have made them share his death!” Susan struggled, but Gabrielle held her down. Now she did weep for her lover and his friends and for herself, alone and friendless in a place where loyalty and sacrifice result in banishment. “Take your hands off me!” she cried.

Thankfully, Roland’s mother did. She sat back, and in the hardness of her jaw and the sharpness of her features Susan saw the ghost of her lover’s face at last, lurking behind the obvious resemblance to his banished friend.

“Be calm,” said Gabrielle. “Theirs will not be your fate. Steven held your father in esteem in spite of his low blood, and he will honor Roland’s choice. You bear his child - you are our great hope.”

Susan shook her head. “Gilead is no less corrupt than Hambry if you so doom your youth. My child is not for you.”

Roland’s mother sighed. “You are upset. We are, all of us, upset. The gunslingers and the boys born to the gun live brutal lives, say true, and I did not love to see my own child in that role, but Cuthbert and Alain knew what their likely fate would be. Weep for them, if you must, but do not imagine they expected different treatment here when they returned without their dinh. You should thank them that they risked their lives to bring you here. I do. Thank them and then forget them; they are gone. Rest now. I will return tomorrow.”

“Can you not call them back? They foiled an army of your city’s enemies. They proved themselves in battle. Roland said . . .”

“At much too high a cost,” Gabrielle interrupted. “Tomorrow. Rest.”

Susan wept a while longer, and, at length, she did sleep for some time. When she awoke, the night had come. She felt less ill; she felt invigorated. The infirmary was silent. Apparently, her new position as the vessel for the dead heir’s progeny afforded privacy, and her rapidly improving condition meant no nurse was on night watch. 

Gingerly, she sat and slid her feet from underneath the covers. She realized she had been undressed and washed, her wrist well set and bound inside a plaster cast. Although the nurses had re-dressed her in naught but a clean, white nightgown, there were slippers by the bed. That was a start. She saw that there was also food nearby: soft bread and cold soup that had been left while she was sleeping. Carefully, she ate and kept it down. A further search revealed nothing more useful than a bathrobe. She put it on and opened up the door with silent care. There was no guard in the hall, either.

Executing a covert escape from someplace one has never seen before is difficult. Susan had been unconscious when she arrived, and the darkened castle was a labyrinth of corridors and staircases. Furthermore, once she had found her way outside, she would need to navigate her way out of the city and then locate two boys banished into exile, who could be hiding anywhere. And yet, she liked her chances of success in that much more than the life promised for her here.

Finally, Susan found a door that led out into open air. She was much higher up than she had guessed. Fortunately, the rampart was deserted; the city was not yet at open war, and guards were posted only on the city walls and at the castle gate. The keep was safe but poorly guarded. 

Susan crossed the rampart and, careful of her wrist, she climbed into an empty tower guardpost to survey the land. Castle Gilead sat high upon a motte, and from here she could see far in all directions. The city formed a broad, walled circle with the castle at its center and four gates that faced the compass points. Each gate was fitted with a mighty guardhouse, complete with towers and parapets. From the vestigial glow of the departed sun, Susan recognized the West Gate of the city. In that direction her fate waited. She turned her attention once again upon the castle grounds and found the stable and a likely exit far below. Satisfied, she crept back into the tower and descended its staircase, narrow, steep, and claustrophobic, all the way to the bottom. 

The ramparts may have been deserted, but there were people in the courtyard. Raucous, drunken voices wafted unevenly to Susan’s ears, betraying their unseen owners. 

“Should have killed him - now he’s nothing. All alone!”

“My son is with him,” a more measured voice, still slurred with drunkenness.

“Your son . . . you have no son, and nor do I. And, when you had one, he was less than natural.”

The other man exhaled in a scoff.

“I do not mean,” the first man drawled, “to say your lady was untrue.”

“I know.”

“And yet, she might have been. Perhaps she lay with the magician, just like Gabrielle, and then he charmed the child to look like you. Then, Gabrielle made Steven cuckold upon her advice.”

“I do not think so. Robert, you have had enough.”

“No, I do not think so, either,” the first man, Robert, moaned. “‘Tis just bad luck, I’ll warrant you. And ka. The first born sons of Gilead wiped out like in the Bible of the Man Jesus.”

“Are we living in a parable?”

“We are living in a hell.”

The second man scoffed again. “Tonight, perhaps. Give me some more spirit, then. Tomorrow we can take comfort in the fact that there have long been rumors that our boys would be sent West - yours too impudent to make a military man, mine too clumsy and too odd. Tonight, we’ll hold a wake for them in this, a hell of our own making.”

The first man laughed. 

Susan thanked the bottle for distracting them and crept behind them to the stables. 

The stable boy was not asleep. Susan should have seen his light, but she was not experienced in stealth, not yet. His eyes widened when he saw her, and she lurched forward and clapped a hand over his mouth. 

What would Roland do? She had no weapon, but there were plenty of sharp things in here. She fumbled for a pitchfork and whispered, “If you speak or try to run, I’ll skewer you.” 

Frantically, he nodded, and he kept mum long enough for her to rip a strip off of her nightgown so that she could fit him with a gag. She sized him up. He was younger than she, but not by much. Perhaps he had been Roland’s childhood companion but, more likely, not. It was clear to her already how the castes of Gilead were lines not to be crossed. He was young and, therefore, not so tall, and he was slender in that same lanky, boyish way as Roland and his friend Arthur - no, not Arthur: Cuthbert. 

“Undress,” she commanded. His eyes widened further. “I am not joking,” she brandished the pitchfork at him a second time.

The boy lowered his suspenders and pulled off his shirt.

“Hand it to me. And the rest.”

Stilted with fear, he stripped and stood before her, naked. She took off her bathrobe and tossed it to him. “Put it on.”

When he was covered up, she herded him toward a chair and bound him there with stable ropes. Then, she stepped behind him, shucked the nightgown, and dressed herself in the stable boy’s clothes. They smelled a little of manure and of unfamiliar boy, but they were heavy and practical and fit acceptably. His boots were too big, so she tore apart the slippers and stuffed the soft bottoms inside to make them fit her better. 

When she was finished, she examined the horses until she found a steed she recognized and ushered him out of his stable with a bridle but no saddle. She had been sorely tempted when she saw Roland’s Rusher, who must have returned riderless, but, for her plan to work, Cuthbert’s steed was a much better choice. 

From the murmur of voices, she guessed the fathers of the two exiled boys were still lingering in the courtyard, but they were both drunk. She plaited her hair and stuffed as much of it as she could fit under the stable boy’s hat and, brazen as the animal’s previous owner, she led the horse into the open night.

“What’s this, Johnny?” asked the drunker man.

“Why, sai Deschain has ordered all of his belongings liquidated,” Susan lied, her voice as soft and low as she could manage.

“Oh, aye,” the drunkard agreed, seemingly on the verge of tears. He rose and stroked the horse’s neck. 

“Your son should have known better than to fit his animal with an ill-omened name like Glue Boy,” remarked the other man. He was already drunker than before. “Mine would have.”

The first man rounded on his friend, and Susan led Glue Boy out of the courtyard at a slow and steady pace as they began, again, to argue. She saluted the guard at the castle gate, then led the horse all through the streets of town without being molested - those few who saw her clearly took her for the stable boy. At length, she tried the same lie at the South Gate. The guard there lamented the loss of such good, threaded stock but let her pass. Outside the gate, she mounted bareback and circled around to the West, edging slowly farther from the city in the dark. When she reached a little wood that seemed a likely hiding place, she dismounted again.

“Find them, Glue Boy,” she whispered.


	4. Alain - Lost and Found

By nightfall Alain had Cuthbert and himself bandaged as well as they were going to be. Poor Bert had been but little help. With his mangled hand and muzzy head he had watched uselessly, with palpable frustration, as Alain bit down on a hard stick and dug the bullet out of his own leg. However, when he was about to bandage up the wound with the remains of his own shirt, which would have left him without one completely, Cuthbert had finally slurred an objection and tried and failed to remove his own. In the end, Alain had acquiesced and torn Cuthbert’s right sleeve off at the seam. His left was ruined for such use; it was already stiff with his own blood. Bandaged and bloody, they sat on the mossy ground - two lost, homeless almost-men, shivering, sleeveless, leaning against each other’s warmth under cover of trees and cover of dark.

“You should sleep, Bert,” Alain whispered against his friend’s temple. He wrapped his arms around Bert’s narrow chest. “If you don’t rest . . .” He trailed off.

“You do not worry that I will not wake?” Cuthbert mumbled even as he settled bonelessly into Alain’s embrace. 

“I am more worried of the consequences if you do not sleep. I do not like the way your speech is slurred, but you have been lucid enough. Here, let me look at you.” 

He shifted his arms to Cuthbert’s biceps and encouraged him to twist around. Alain felt Cuthbert’s drooping mind complain, but he did force himself to lean on his good hand and turn, albeit sluggishly, to face him.

“Tell me your name,” Alain commanded, looking straight into his eyes. His hand was still on Cuthbert’s body, and he let loose the touch into his mind, searching for anything that might suggest his life would drain away if he should sleep. His probing awoke antsiness, which was more promising than not.

“Arthur Heath.” Cuthbert began to giggle. Hopefully, he simply did not want to say his other, broken name.

Alain narrowed his eyes and put his hand on Cuthbert’s face, stretching the skin around his right eye away from the socket so that he could squint at Cuthbert’s pupil in the dark. It seemed normal enough. He shifted his touch so that it might be more calming, less invasive, and he felt Cuthbert’s antsiness decrease; although, the giddiness brought on by his head wound and the loss of blood and his own twisted humor was apparently unquelled.

“Cuthbert,” Bert corrected, swallowing hard around another laugh, “Cuthbert of Nowhere.”

Alain sighed. “Alright.” He closed his eyes. “And who is he whose blood has led us here, whom we once called our dinh?” 

“Roland,” Cuthbert choked out, his laughter gone, “Roland Deschain of Gilead.”

There was a long pause during which neither boy spoke. Grief settled deep in Alain’s gut and melded with the nauseating throb that rose up from his wounded leg.

Cuthbert continued: “If I do sleep, then I shall dream of him. And fire.” 

Lucid enough, indeed. Alain opened his eyes and snatched his fingers back from Cuthbert’s face and arm. 

Of course, Cuthbert had not seen the fire for himself, but Alain had. When Rusher met them in their hiding place, Susan, unconscious, lashed onto his back and Roland and Sheemie nowhere to be seen, it was Alain, with his damned half magic ability, who had risked looking into the pink orb. The thing had held his mind for hours while Cuthbert mopped at Susan’s forehead and fit a splint on Susan’s wrist. Indeed, darkness had fallen by the time it let him go and he awoke to sight of Cuthbert’s raised revolver pointed at the orb; apparently, he had grown tired of standing guard, alone, over not one but two unconscious people.

In those long hours, Al had seen Roland’s skin boil in the fire and many other things besides. He had felt heat and smelt the smell of burning flesh and felt his dinh’s soul wink out of the world and seen the great potential in his own hands for destruction. “I can make you strong as he who is my master,” the orb promised. “Stronger!”

Gasping awake, Alain had dropped the thing and, grateful, looked into Cuthbert’s dark eyes. “Go on,” he had urged. “Blow the fucking thing to smithereens! Roland is gone - the folk have burned him as they meant to burn her lying there. Evil is lurking here, and in that thing. We’re not taking it back.” 

And Bert had done so, gladly. 

What Alain would not give, now, to feel from Cuthbert even such a bitter satisfaction! Whatever shred of his once unyielding spirit had remained when they reached Gilead, Steven Deschain had broken. More frightening than Deschain’s savage, grief-fueled anger had been Cuthbert’s tangible conviction that the punishment was well deserved and - worse - how he had wished for death. Although it seemed that Al had pulled him from that precipice, he felt with all the substance of his touch that, even if they did secure some purpose to revive Bert’s passion, he would always live with half his heart tied to the nonexistent grave of his lost dinh. With the exuberance of youth, fueled on by Cuthbert’s over-giving nature, his devotion to Roland had been all-consuming. Now, Roland was dead, and Cuthbert, guilty without reason, was consumed.

Before either of them could jar their minds from morbid thoughts, another presence brushed against Al’s mind, and, just as Cuthbert opened up his mouth to speak, he shoved his hand forward to block his lips and forced into this mind: “Someone is coming.”

That level of telepathy was something that Alain had never had the strength to realize before, but it worked this time, strengthened by adrenaline or desperation or the steady maturation of his body and his mind or (he hoped not but would likely never know for certain) his encounter with the grapefruit of the Wizard’s Rainbow. He was certain of his singular success because Cuthbert’s undamaged eye widened in surprise and affront at the violation. Bert’s anger, his self pity and, yes, too, his admiration, shot back through the touch, and Al felt all the senses that Deschain had beaten into temporary uselessness wake up as Cuthbert spun away and crouched, listening, his one open eye combing the little wood for shadows that did not belong.

At length, a horse crashed down towards the stream, followed by a slim boy dressed in peasant’s raiment and a flat cap. It was Cuthbert’s steed, Glue Boy, Alain realized immediately. There was a good chance this boy, whoever he was, was looking for them. He held his breath. No arms and both of them were wounded.

As Glue Boy stooped to drink, the boy removed his cap, and a cascade of golden curls spilled out. For nearly a full year, those curls had haunted Alain’s waking visions and his dreams. Cuthbert saw, too, and he turned to give Alain a backwards glance before he took a chance and tiptoed silently out of his hiding place while the intruder’s back was turned. As Alain watched, he angled himself so his bruised and swollen face would be in shadow and Alain would still remain unseen and spoke:

“Had I been resting in a cozy bed, I’d not have left it for the world.” Alain was impressed with the clear drawl of his voice. 

Susan was, too. She jumped and gasped and spun around and nearly lost her balance on the mossy rocks. 

Even from a distance in the darkness, Alain recognized the old familiar twist of Cuthbert’s smile. Then, to Al’s - and also Cuthbert’s - great surprise, Susan rushed up and threw her arms around Bert’s neck. 

Alain felt pain explode in Cuthbert’s face and hand and saw him waver as the dizziness he had suppressed with training and adrenaline came wafting back into his head. Probably in part to remain standing, Cuthbert returned the embrace and steadied himself against the body of the young woman against whom he had railed for months. 

But then, had he not been as close to her before? For their whole journey back, Cuthbert had cradled her before him on his horse, and, once, Alain had glimpsed him squeezed up tight behind her when, in a rare moment of lucidity, she had taken the reins so he could shoot and ridden for them long after he had run out of shells. Was Bert surprised that he had, in his desperation, handed his life over to that semiconscious, teenage, female equestrian without a second thought? Alain was not. He silently blessed Susan and her unborn child for bringing back the bond of ka and, with it, Cuthbert’s purpose.

“Careful,” Alain warned at last, worried that the ongoing embrace might, if it continued further, cause his injured friend more harm than good. He hefted himself off the moss and leaned in artificial nonchalance against the thick trunk of a tree, avoiding placing weight on his left leg.

Susan let Cuthbert go, and he stayed upright - just.

“My God!” Susan exclaimed. The embrace over, she now stood a polite distance from Cuthbert’s unsteady form. Tentatively, she stretched one hand out towards his face only to shrink away and briefly cover her own mouth. “She said that you paid dearly, but . . .”

“Alain is shot in the leg. Why have you come?” Cuthbert’s words might have come out harsher than he meant. He wobbled as a wave of dizziness seemed to crash over him again. Soon, he would be forced to show the true extent of his weakness and sit. Absently, he tongued the empty gum where the two teeth next to his left canine used to be. A spot of blood reddened the end of his tongue before he seemed to notice Susan staring and tucked it away and closed his mouth.

“I . . .” Susan began. As ka-tet twisted tighter round the three of them, Alain felt how desperate she had been to be with him and Bert. Now that she was here, he felt her succumb to a great sense of belonging, but he could tell that she had not the words to justify what seemed, on the surface, like a rash action that had endangered Susan herself, her child, and her fallen lover's banished friends.

“We are ka-tet,” Alain told her. Without the benefit of his and Cuthbert’s gunslinger education, Susan might not realize the significance of either the bond or her compulsion to flee Gilead and join them. Bert certainly did. Alain could feel this lifeline strengthening his spirit, though his body remained weak. He explained, “Your needs and wants, your love for Roland, his for you and for us, ours for him, and forces beyond what we can control have bound us all together for this moment, or for longer.”

“This path is dangerous for all of us,” Cuthbert put in. (The role of dinh was reaching out to him, and, in the depths of his own mind, Alain screamed, “Take it!”) “For you, there is a way back still if you are wary of the risk to you and . . .” his eye dropped.

Susan put a hand upon her belly, not visibly swollen yet. 

“But,” Cuthbert went on, “if you do come with us, I pledge everything I have to give to you and Roland's child and to Al and to the bond that ka has wrapped around us all.”

He held out his whole right hand, and Susan took it in both of her smaller ones. 

Alain let out a breath of great relief.


	5. Cuthbert - Bargaining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a slow start, Our Story begins to move along . . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the reason for the ominous tag, Underage Prostitution. It contains explicit (but not violent) sex between an adult OMC and a teenage minor.

The first few days of exile were excruciating. With Susan in their company, danger lurked not only within the walls of Gilead but also without - before long, there would be a reward for the return of Roland’s unborn child, and Cuthbert doubted claimants would be encouraged to spare Susan’s companions’ lives. He did not mention this to Susan in so many words, but it weighed heavy on his mind, and he pushed them forward from their initial, poor hiding place before the night was gone.

All night, he allowed himself to sleep, cozied up against Alain’s broad chest on Glue Boy’s sturdy back. If he was to be dinh, his ka-tet needed him clearheaded and as physically stable as could be. West their little band continued through the night, as quickly as Susan could walk, until the first fingers of dawn touched Cuthbert’s cheek and pried his one functional eyelid from its resting place. Then, he cut Glue Boy loose and watched him gallop back along the road toward Gilead before he broke off South across the woods and fields. Offroad, he would be far too easy for the men of Gilead to track. 

As the sun rose, Cuthbert led his companions to the North, where groves of trees surrounded irrigation ditches dug for the vast patchwork of farms between this place and the large forest West of Hemphill. The harvest was done, but wasted crops there might be here and there, and laundry, and, eventually, cover and a sparsely guarded town. If Cuthbert had to skin himself to clothe his friends and keep them warm he would see to it that they lived unharmed.

Three days later, they reached Hemphill dressed in new, clean tunics pilfered from a farmer’s clothesline. Their wounds had been rebound with tearings from their old, already ruined shirts, and Alain could walk without additional assistance if he leaned upon the twisted bit of rotting branch that he and Bert had wrestled from a tree. But, their stomachs rumbled constantly, and all three companions were growing light headed from the lack of protein in their tiny meals of half rotted pumpkins, wild berries, and what mushrooms they were certain would not send them to their deaths. From the edge of the thick forest, they surveyed the outskirts of the town.

“What we need is a knife,” Cuthbert declared. The left side of his face was probably a purple mass of abused flesh by now, but he could tell the swelling was decreasing. Before too long, he would have the use of his left eye, which had, he hoped, been kept safe by the hard protective socket of his skull.

“Not a gun?” Susan asked. Already, she could move nearly as silently as Cuthbert, and she had steel in her eyes, but it would be a long while before he and Al could pass along all of the training that they had received when they had been born to the gun. 

“A gun is loud,” Alain reminded her.

“And expensive,” Cuthbert added. “We have nothing to barter on the black market that will get us one, and we cannot obtain one by force - not yet.”

“Only gunslingers, soldiers, hired guns, and bandits have such weapons,” Al explained. “We are still wounded, weaker than we were: dangerously outmatched.”

“Will you steal a knife, then?” Susan asked.

“Or buy one. I have a little gold.”

“Not enough, Bert,” Alain warned.

“We shall see.”

Unwilling to split up, the three of them crept into town at dusk, and Cuthbert led them to the blacksmith’s shop. The smith was, unfortunately, in residence, and he looked at them suspiciously. Cuthbert took in the many weapons on the walls and gauged how quickly he might grab for one - quite quickly, with his legs and favored hand intact, and, even with his leg wound, Al would need only a second more, he guessed.

He lied smoothly: “Please, sai, my wife is with child, and her brother here is lame. We are running from the wars - they burned our home and tried to take me for a soldier, but I would not leave my family. We wish only to buy a hunting knife and then keep to ourselves.”

The blacksmith laughed. “A splendid half-truth, lad. I might have been a sap for you if men from Gilead had not nailed all your faces up in the town square two days ago. Your ‘wanted’ bill has you handsomer.”

Cuthbert checked his grimace and revised his plan. “Will you sell to me or no?” If the blacksmith knew his history, then the man should understand that, even in his weakened state, Bert would be much faster than the he was, however tall and burly he may be.

The blacksmith’s eyes darted around. He was no fool. “Mayhap we can make a bargain. What have you got?”

Cuthbert showed his money, and the blacksmith scoffed. “What else have you got?” He cast his eyes on Susan. Even dressed in boy’s clothing, she was very comely, and, if the blacksmith knew who Cuthbert was, he surely had guessed her identity as well.

Alain pulled Susan behind him, and Cuthbert stepped in front of both of them to block her more fully from view. “You deal with me,” he said. 

Now, the blacksmith’s wandering eye returned to Cuthbert, and he looked him up and down. 

They would get their knife; Cuthbert was certain, now. Dinh, ka may have made him, but he would not lead his friends as Roland had. He was no hero, and he had no destiny for personal greatness. When Roland lived and was their dinh, his followers had been his weapons. Cuthbert interpreted his role as quite the opposite: he was his ka-tet’s shield. Whatever pain he might spare Al and Susan and the unborn babe that they should live, strengthen, and prosper he would gladly take upon himself until he was used up.

The blacksmith had completed his assessment. “How the mighty are fallen!” he exclaimed. “Have you ever sucked a man’s cock?”

Cuthbert was ready for the proposition. Flirtation was easy. “Not yet.”

“That seems a fair price, baby gunslinger. I am not so well-to-do that I can give away my blades, but half of you is still pretty enough, and this is a rare opportunity: a gunslinger on his knees.”

“I am no gunslinger,” Cuthbert reminded him, but he forged on before the man could argue or withdraw his offer: “Is that the price for one?”

“You suck my cock, one dagger.”

“A good one?”

“All my work is good, boy. Do we have a deal, or will you leave me here in peace. I have no wish for bloodshed.”

“Nor do I,” Cuthbert agreed, “but give me one moment to think.” Now that he had something to bargain with, it seemed imprudent not to haggle. He turned part way around so he could meet his ka-tet’s eyes.

Behind Alain, Susan looked horrified. “No, Bert . . .” she began, but Cuthbert’s hard glance cut her off. He was a trifle horrified himself, but they would likely waste away without a weapon, and his terror of the thought was quickly lessening as he committed to the action that would benefit them most. 

Alain must have felt his train of thought because his expression of reluctant acceptance shifted to one of more forthright disapproval and alarm. He shook his head and opened up his mouth to speak, but Cuthbert turned to face the blacksmith full on once again before he could give voice to his concern. 

“How much for three?” His best flirtatious smile was no doubt less effective with a puffy bruise for half his face, but he gave it a try.

The blacksmith laughed again and smiled widely. “Oh, you are a game boy, aren’t you? I’m sure I can think of something.”

“Have you a back room?” Cuthbert pressed. He was not eager to give payment with Alain and Susan standing there, watching. “My friends will wait here.”

The blacksmith looked suspiciously at Susan and Alain and at the roomful of knives, swords, and hammers he would leave at their disposal. “Are you honest, boy?” he asked Cuthbert.

“When it is to my benefit.”

“I do good work,” the blacksmith said. “Good work. And I am not a brutal man. You are getting a bargain.”

“Aye,” Cuthbert agreed. “I know.”

The other room was very dim. As Cuthbert's unobstructed eye adjusted, he began to understand it was the blacksmith's living quarters. There was a sturdy little table and a bed fit with a heavy patchwork quilt. It looked inviting, so Cuthbert turned away from it; he was not here to sleep.

When he turned around, the blacksmith was right there. He was a very tall man, very strong, and Cuthbert, who had thought that he was growing tall himself, found himself at eye level with the hulking man's sinewy neck. He tilted his chin up and smiled again.

The blacksmith cradled Cuthbert's damaged face in one big hand. Not unhandsome, he was two or three times Cuthbert’s age, but he had manly, regular features and brown eyes just as dark as Cuthbert’s own. His curly, black hair was cropped very short, and his skin was several shades darker than Cuthbert’s although whether through birth or through the fiery soot of his profession Cuthbert could not tell. 

The blacksmith sighed. “You do not have to do this, boy.”

“Oh no? Will you give me the daggers gratis, then?”

The blacksmith sighed again. “I won’t. But do you need them so badly? Even with your wounds you and your friend are strong enough. You could do honest work and learn a trade.”

Cuthbert shook his head. With the price on their heads, no honest man would take them on for fear of retribution, and most would turn them in for a reward. The blacksmith’s apathy had been a lucky find. “I know a trade already,” he reminded him.

The huge man’s grip on Cuthbert’s face tightened, and he ran his thumb across his lips, which were still a trifle swollen from his beating days ago. “I see you are in earnest, then. Take off your clothes.” He let him go.

“What, all of them?”

“I said already that I do good work. You know you are getting a bargain. For my part, I will get the most out of my payment.”

Cuthbert shrugged. “If it pleases you.” He did his best to strip with confidence, but the bandage on his mutilated left hand made things difficult. He had not yet attempted to undress himself without Alain’s assistance. Again, he thanked his lucky stars his favored right hand was unharmed.

After a moment, the blacksmith took pity on him and helped him out of his shirt and trousers.

“Say thankya,” Cuthbert muttered, frustrated. “It is a recent wound.”

“Clearly,” the blacksmith agreed. “What is under here?” He gestured towards Cuthbert’s bandaged hand but thankfully did not touch it.

“Four fingers and a palm,” Cuthbert deadpanned.

The blacksmith boomed a laugh. Cuthbert wondered whether Susan and Alain could hear it. “Now it is my turn,” the big man said. 

Efficiently, he removed his clothes. His skin was dusky underneath them, too, but not as dark as what Cuthbert had seen - his profession had painted him darker still. His mature cock was large, heavy, and full. Cuthbert eyed it and prepared himself mentally. If he stuffed it in his mouth, his inexperienced throat would choke on it for certain. If his stuffed it elsewhere, pain was sure to follow, but surely nothing like the pain that blew away his fingertips or the pain of having Roland ripped out of his life. Again, he smiled his most seductive smile and hoped it was effective enough on his purpled, swollen face.

“There’s that game lad. Brazen little thing, aren’t you?”

“I have been called so under other circumstances.”

“I reckon that’s the truth. Tell me once more that you agree to pay this price. I do not plan to stop once I get started.”

Cuthbert nodded. “I agree. You will take my body, and I will take away three daggers of my choosing. I do request you not do me any permanent harm, but that is not a full condition, only my request.”

The blacksmith paused. He narrowed his eyes at Cuthbert’s swollen cheek and bandaged hand. “I do not intend to hurt you.”

Cuthbert shrugged, skeptical. He turned around and ambled over to the table. “Here?” he suggested, running his unbandaged palm along the top of it.

“Acceptable.”

Cuthbert leaned heavily upon the table, and he closed his eye. He was so exhausted still. This position was almost restful, and sleep threatened. He was glad nobody had suggested the inviting bed.

After a moment, the blacksmith’s large left hand settled on Cuthbert’s hip. “Spread your legs a little more,” he said.

Cuthbert complied. He blinked and struggled not to succumb to sleep.

One of the blacksmith’s fingers touched his anus. The finger was large and calloused, but it was also slick and gentle. It painted Cuthbert’s little hole with some oil or grease until it fluttered with what Cuthbert might almost call pleasure. Then, slowly and gently, the finger pressed inside. This was not what Cuthbert had expected. This was almost nice. He felt his own cock begin to take interest. By the time the man’s whole finger was inside, Cuthbert was at full attention. The blacksmith prodded something deep in Cuthbert’s body, and his cock jumped and his breath hitched.

“Did I not tell you you would get a bargain?” the man teased in Cuthbert’s ear. “No permanent damage indeed. You should be keeping better company. Here comes another.”

The man’s second finger squeezed in with his first, and now the stretch did hurt, but the blacksmith was careful, and, soon enough, Cuthbert’s discomfort began to melt away. The blacksmith prodded at the bump again, then said, “I’m going to put something in you now.”

“What’s that?”

“Only a taper, to help you stay accustomed to the stretch. Then I am going to come around and you are going to suck me. And then I’m going to fuck you. There won’t be any more coddling once I’m ready.”

Cuthbert turned his face to the left and looked up at the blacksmith with his undamaged right eye. “You do not need to coddle me, now. I agreed to payment. You need not make light of my request.”

“You are a tasty morsel. I will have you shortly. There are some men who do not take joy in causing others pain.”

Cuthbert laughed. Alain was such, if anybody was, but all gunslingers - Bert included, had he earned his guns instead of banishment - felt a bloodlust that could easily overpower any kinder sentiment under the correct circumstances. And gunslingers, Cuthbert was certain, were only different from other men in their ability to focus their violence and fire toward a goal. He laughed, but he appreciated the blacksmith’s desire to be gentle - at turns, his left hand burned and ached, and itches bothered the fingertips that were no longer there; his left eye throbbed. “‘Tis to your credit that you think so,” he allowed.

“You lead a hard life,” mused the blacksmith.

“It will be easier when I have earned a knife for each of us. Now, where’s that taper?”

The blacksmith pulled his fingers out, and something cold and blunt pressed up against Cuthbert’s stretched entrance. It was larger than the fingers had been, and it burned as the blacksmith forced it inside. Cuthbert felt his body try to push it out again. 

“That’s it,” the blacksmith said. “I’m going to tie it in, and then you squeeze at it until you’re comfortable.”

Cuthbert felt his eyebrows raise. The blacksmith had contributed relatively little additional pain to Cuthbert’s already painful existence, but he would never have described himself as ‘comfortable.’ The blacksmith pressed the butt of the taper up against a leather strap and fastened the ends around Cuthbert’s stomach to hold the thing in place.

“Alright?”

“It’s fine.”

The blacksmith sighed again and walked around until his cock was level with Cuthbert’s nose. Cuthbert smiled encouragingly, then ducked his arm out of the way and leaned to take it in his mouth. It was large and sour with sweat, and Cuthbert had difficulty breathing through his broken nose. He choked almost immediately. “I cry your pardon,” he gasped out as he pulled back. “I cannot breathe.”

The blacksmith caressed Cuthbert’s face gently and ran a careful finger down his long nose, which now skewed toward the right side of his face at an obvious fracture about half way down. “Hold your breath, then, I’ll be quick. Take as much of me in as you can, and then I will pull out.”

“Alright.” Cuthbert took a deep breath through his mouth and opened wide, stretching his lips over his teeth. Slowly, he pulled the blacksmith’s thick member into the back of his throat, then gagged, pulled back, and gasped.

The strap was unfastened, the taper out, the spit-slicked cock inside. Cuthbert gasped again. The pain was minimal and easy to withstand, but the sensation of fullness was overwhelming. It might have been a good feeling had he been at the mercy of a close friend like Alain, with whom he was ka-tet, or, even better, his dinh, dear, departed Roland. It might have been beautiful to feel so possessed by him. As it was, his body was, for these few moments, property of a stranger. There was more pleasure than discomfort, and he granted he was lucky it was not much worse, but it was a payment dearly given, and Cuthbert was more glad than ever that he had stepped in before Susan could offer to pay such a price.

The blacksmith took him forcefully, and Cuthbert braced himself against the table and told himself he was not violated - he had agreed to this, and the result would save the lives of his ka-tet. 

At length, the blacksmith leaned across his back and said, “I want you to come.”

“If it pleases you,” Cuthbert allowed.

The blacksmith’s large hand came around and fondled his cock, which had gone soft even though his thick member pounded mercilessly against the stimulating bump inside his body. To his combined shame and pleasure, the fondling brought Cuthbert to full hardness. “Now, touch yourself while I fuck you.”

Cuthbert nodded. He brought his intact right hand around to clutch at his own cock and stroked it cruelly. The blacksmith stood back up and grasped his hips with renewed strength and slammed into him. Cuthbert’s orgasm was emptying. He felt almost purified, having expelled so many days of tension from his bones, but then no better feeling came to fill the hole his orgasm had left. He remembered the familiar press of his father’s hands on his biceps as he held him in a backwards half-embrace before he dragged him out beyond the city walls. He wanted that feeling again. The blacksmith pounded for a while longer, then he came and pulled out. Cuthbert felt even emptier than he had felt before. He propped himself up on his elbows and stared down at the woodgrain.

The blacksmith stepped away, then came back and wiped his ass and thighs with a grimy rag. “You may get dressed now,” he said.

“Say thankya,” Cuthbert breathed. He struggled into his clothes, too numb to feel further humiliated when the blacksmith had to help. When he was dressed again he felt a little better. He steeled his expression and looked up into the large man’s eyes. “The daggers?”


	6. Gabrielle - in Exile

If Gilead had been rancid before, it was like poison now. Gabrielle had few illusions; a portion of the pestilence was of her own making. Lonely and selfish, she had trysted with a snake and given birth to monsters: Roland’s disappointment, his determination to win his guns and challenge the taunting magician, his temporary exile to Mejis, and his death. In retrospect, Gabrielle could not be certain whether Marten had used magic to seduce her or whether, disenchanted as she was with her cold, distant husband, his handsome face and flattery had been enough to tempt her into infidelity. Certainly, she had never been thinking of her son.

She thought about him often, now, however - now that it was too late. She thought of the expression on his face when Marten called him to her chambers to witness the shame of her adultery. She thought of the old combat teacher Cort, his body battered into uselessness in Roland’s measured execution of his rage. She thought of Cuthbert Allgood standing in her doorway with someone else’s blood smeared on his face - Roland’s or Cort’s or the hawk, David’s - whispering what Roland had done. He had been a sweet boy, Cuthbert, always thinking on his mother.

Cuthbert’s mother was a shell of a woman now, cold and hard and brittle now that her son was gone. After Susan Delgado disappeared, it had been put out that Cuthbert and Alain had kidnapped her, but Gabrielle supposed that very doubtful - Susan had expressed a strong desire to see them, and she had been disgusted by their exile. Gabrielle had not seen the boys beaten or banished, but she had heard that they were badly injured. Their stealthy return to Gilead that very night seemed nigh impossible. No, Susan had gone of her own accord, and she had taken Roland’s unborn child with her.

Gabrielle’s theory was of little comfort to the parents of the banished boys even though she was nigh certain that they guessed the same. When Steven placed a price upon their heads contingent upon Susan’s safe return, Chris and Robin exchanged a single, silent glance, but argue they did not. And so, while those families most affected by Steven’s cruel decision grieved in silence, Steven raged at Gabrielle when he heard she was telling tales that undermined his proclamation that the boys were kidnappers in violation of their exile. 

“I will exile myself, then,” Gabrielle declared. “I am not innocent of this, but neither are you. Who was it who sent Roland out of Gilead just when he needed guidance most? Who was it who let anger rule the treatment of his loyal friends? I will no more of men. The rest of my life I will spend in cloister.”

“You are too late!” Steven cried after her, but he was too late, too.

A day and night by train, perhaps five days on horseback, could bring one from Gilead to the rough frontier town of Debaria. There, on its outskirts, was an Abbey convent where Gabrielle had often taken refuge during what she had once thought she would look back on as her darkest days. Those days had been but grey, she realized now, and they had been dramatically eclipsed. In those grey days, the spiritual leadership offered by the Sisters of Serenity had not been enough to prevent Gabrielle from succumbing to temptation each time she returned to Gilead where Steven’s ice cold eyes and Marten’s clever lips were waiting. This time, although Marten had fled, she was determined to return no more. She knelt before the prioress, Everlynne, who would have towered over and out-massed the largest man in Gilead, and made a permanent commitment to the order. Her siken gowns she set aside, and she cropped off her hair and dawned a rough, grey habit. Days and nights she spent praying for her own atonement and for the soul of her departed son.

Four months after her self imposed exile, she received an answer to her prayers, but not one she expected. A summons from Everlynne brought Gabrielle out to the gate for the first time since her arrival. Because the prioress had called for her by name, she guessed it would be Steven; although, why he might wish to speak to her ever again was far beyond the limits of her speculation.

Steven it was not, nor any man from Gilead on horseback. Three young people had arrived on foot, and at the head of them was Susan, who was now heavy with child. It was as easy now as it had been when she lay pale in hospital bed to see what Roland had been taken with. The young woman was radiant in pregnancy, and her newly suntanned face glowed warm to match her golden hair, still long but plaited back out of her face in two thick braids that nearly reached her waist. Her belly bulged out underneath her deerskin shift; whatever clothing she had worn in her covert escape no longer fit her bloated body. She bore no obvious weapon, but flint was in her eyes - as much as in the eyes of any gunslinger. 

On Susan’s right stood Cuthbert, arrow straight and just as thin. Heavily armed, he, too, was clad in deerskin; although, he wore the colorless canvas tunic of a farmer underneath his rough hide jerkin. That garment, part rudimentary armor, part sleeveless jacket, was cinched tight about his narrow middle with a braided belt from which dangled one well oiled, newly crafted slingshot and two sheathed knives of different lengths. On his back was slung a longbow and a quiver full of arrows, and, on his hands, he wore a pair of painstakingly crafted leather gloves, which flattered the length of his slim fingers. He looked every inch an ancient ranger of the forest, yet it was his face and not his dress that was most changed. Forever complemented (or berated) for his fine, comely looks, Cuthbert was handsome still, but his nose had obviously been broken, and an odd scar the color of dried blood made a jagged outline two thirds of the way around his left eye socket. Still, her husband’s souvenirs had not the impact of his missing smile or his hard and deadly eyes. The sweet boy who had been her Roland’s constant childhood companion was invisible, or, like her poor Roland, dead.

It was to Cuthbert that the prioress was addressing her last words as Gabrielle approached the gate: “. . . leave the young lady and the child.”

Cuthbert nodded gravely, and he seemed about to speak when Susan interrupted. 

“No! We do not separate. Last time we separated, someone died.” 

Cuthbert regarded her, his mouth a lipless line. “I’d rather have you safe, Sue,” he said softly. “Safe and with those who know how to help.”

“I’ll none of that, Bert. All of us or none.”

“That is my preference, too,” he admitted. “No compromise today, then.” He did smile, now, more crookedly than he had in his youth, but there was sweetness in it when he pointed it at Susan, which did not remain when he cast eyes on Everlynne again; although, the curve of his lips did. “You heard the lady. We are scarcely more than boys and have other things upon our minds than bending women to our wills.”

Everlynne laughed a hearty, throaty laugh, which shook her tall and bulky body and huge breasts. “I reckon the last half of that is true. You’re not afraid we’ll eat you up, lad? Surely such a worldly young fellow has heard tell of the dangers that breed when so many women discover that they have no need of men.”

“Oh, rumors abound about us all, I do declare. Do you mean the one where you will put my pecker to such use my whole body will cease to function or the one where I will flee in fright upon the realization that you have no such desire? Neither frightens me, for worldliness - your word - has come upon me quickly, and the three of us came here a-purpose, as you may recall. Decide now, for my friends and I should flee posthaste if you deny us. Even if it be true that this region’s men be too afeared to knock upon your door, we stand here too exposed.”

Alain, who used to be Alain Johns, remained silent. He stood slightly behind the other two, leaning on a strong, smoothly carved staff at least as tall as Everlynne. Unlike Cuthbert, Alain wore a long deerskin coat, which fell down past his hips. His eyes were the least changed, but Gabrielle was hardly fooled. Unchanged might simply mean that the strange, supernatural power in his mind had rendered him less innocent in childhood, and there was plenty of room for guns or other weapons to hide beneath his voluminous coat. Outwardly unassuming, he was, perhaps, most dangerous of all.

Everlynne towered over all three but yet reserved her judgment. Although Cuthbert came within six inches of her height, the boyish lankiness that Gabrielle now guessed he’d carry to maturity made him look like a vulnerable blade of grass beside a monstrous hen. The prioress had not asked for Gabrielle’s opinion, but she had summoned her out to the gate, and so she spoke.

“I hope you did not call me here to catch a final glimpse of my son’s loyal friends and unborn child before you send them off to birth the babe in wilderness.”

Everlynne laughed again. “Would that be worse or better for you than if I had sent them off without calling you hence?”

Gabrielle blanched and looked down at her shoes. 

“‘Tis true our custom does not allow men. That I have already said. But sanctuary is a sacred thing that I cannot deny to those who need it. You are a bright young woman, firm in friendship, and you will make a strong mother. And you are a cunning lad, thoughtful and unafraid. For all that you stand to the side, ‘tis clear you are the leader, and I know you did not lead them here without aforethought. You,” she addressed Alain for the first time, “are most intriguing, but I reckon we’ll have time enough to talk a little later. Come out of the road. We’ll hide you, and we’ll help you birth the child. Then, we shall see what happens next.”

In accordance with Susan’s insistence that they not be separated, Everlynne installed the pregnant girl and her two male friends in one room into which the Sisters hauled two extra cots. To Gabrielle’s surprise, she let them keep their arms with them: the bow, the slingshot, a curved hunting knife with one serrated edge, a long machete, a small throwing dagger, a second rate highwayman’s revolver, and Alain’s quarterstaff.

“The world has moved one,” the prioress said. “For now, keep to your room and, if you absolutely must step out, keep to the open passage on this floor. Later, the time may come when pragmatism may admit you elsewhere. We women are capable, but this is a religious order; we are peaceful, not well armed.”

“And not foolish. We recognize that we are in your debt.” Cuthbert stuck out a foot and bowed very low over it, the gloved fist of his right hand at his forehead. 

Behind him, in the little room, Susan ducked her head and gave a shallow, awkward curtsey over her heavy belly, and Alain balanced carefully with one hand on his staff and offered a slightly abbreviated version of Cuthbert’s classic bow. Cuthbert bid them, “Thankya,” one more time and closed the door.

In the days that followed, Gabrielle took it upon herself to see to the needs of Roland’s consort and his friends as they all waited in their own peculiar cloister for the child to be born. More than one time each day, Gabrielle would visit them to bring them food and try to coax them into talk. At first, the response was polite but not particularly trusting; beyond platitudes, Gabrielle was able to earn nothing more substantial than Cuthbert’s dark wit.

When she informed them that no one from Gilead had attempted to search the cloister, he laughed. “Oh aye! For we are vile, kidnapping boys and would be eaten if we brought our vulnerable bits and pieces here.”

“It is a city run by men,” Gabrielle agreed.

“I take offense at that. I am a man myself and will not be compared to your beloved Steve. I am of Gilead no more, and, one exile to another, I tell you that it is a city run by fools. Midwifery is not a skill taught to the boys born to the gun nor to motherless girls in Hambry. I reckon I will be forced to choose ‘gratified’ over ‘offended’ if Deschain thinks we care too little for the lives of Susan and her child to seek aid. The Sisters of Serenity are known by all as self sufficient women, who have expertise in cultivation, medicines, and herbs, and, had I anything to bet, I’d wager you are not the only one who bore a child before coming here. Furthermore, this place is a thick-walled, cloistered sanctuary. A fool he is indeed not to look here, but, if he has not yet, I’d wager further that he will not ever.” 

“Perhaps he fears he will meet me,” suggested Gabrielle. 

“He ought to, lady, aye.” He was reclining on his cot with his boots off and his back against the wall. His gloves were still on, oddly, and his hunting knife was in his belt.

“Won’t you settle in, Bert? I meant to make it clear to you you will not need to flee.”

He cocked his head at her and followed her glance down to where his hands were resting on his knees. The pleasant smile he had worn throughout their conversation faded, and Susan, in her bed, and Alain, upon a chair beside it, ceased their private chatter and looked silently between the two of them.

A split second later, Cuthbert’s smile returned, sardonic. He tapped all ten fingers rapidly upon his knees just once, and a sick lump caught in Gabrielle’s throat when she realized the little, ring, and middle finger on his left hand moved as one; the fingers of the glove were sewn together.

“No, I rather like my gloves,” he said. “Susan spent long months crafting them for me, perfecting the patterns, treating the leather, adding all those splendid touches she devised that make me never want to take them off. Are they not cunning little things? Thankee, Sue, again. They are are treasure.” He bobbed his head at her.

More grimly, she nodded back.

“Your dagger, then,” Gabrielle prompted.

“Ah. You see, I am still sentimental. I paid much too high a price for that to let it leave my person.”

Gabrielle shuddered. From his insinuation earlier that he had nothing to bet and from the pale, haunted faces of his friends it was easy to guess what price that might have been. She breathed in sharply, deeply through her nose.

Cuthbert’s expression softened. He scooted to the edge of his cot, stripped off his right glove, and set his bare, undamaged hand on top of one of hers. “It was cruel of me to shock you. The prioress called me ‘worldly,’ and ‘tis true. Not just the hunting knife, but the machete also, and the throwing dagger, and a pair of scissors, too, because I was ‘so sweet.’” He squeezed her hand to stop her words. “More flattery than ‘twas humiliation, that: they were not part of the original bargain, and they are far superior to knives for many tasks - some of the sewing chores, for one, and trimming hair. A bargain the arrangement was, indeed, for I paid only what I could afford.”

She looked all around his face and saw that he was haunted, too, but proud. She noticed, also, that in his chestnut hair, which had grown to his shoulders since she had last seen him on that day he rode away with Roland towards Mejis, he had maintained a slanted fringe to keep it from his eyes and face. 

He saw her looking and confided softly, “I am the only one who uses them for haircuts. Straight hair is a curse.”

Unable to resist any longer, Gabrielle leaned forward and wrapped her lost son’s closest friend up in her arms as though he really were her child as Susan once had thought. He was the closest thing that she had now - he and that baby waiting to be born.

“The time is very close,” Alain remarked as though he’d read her thoughts. “I feel the baby’s consciousness.”

Over Cuthbert’s shoulder, Gabrielle saw Susan squeeze his hand.

Alain was accurate in his prediction; the child was born two days later. Again, Everlynne respected Susan’s wishes that the two young men remain in her close company - unheard of in Gilead and, Gabrielle believed, all though the Inner Baronies. A foolish custom, maybe, she allowed, for they were rather helpful, too. 

Alain sat stolidly by Susan’s side, and Gabrielle saw Everlynne’s watchful eye regard him as he held her hand and coaxed her into an unlikely calm, which could not possibly have stemmed from his comforting words alone. Contrariwise, Cuthbert, with his quickness, rolled his sleeves up to the elbows as he fetched and carried, wiped and washed, and handed things to Everlynne and Gabrielle and the old midwife, Brianna. At the wet and bloody height of the affair, he finally removed his left glove; although, by his admission, without the length and support Susan’s handiwork afforded, his hand was useless other than as a pincer or a prop. His little and ring finger were limp and twisted and would not move by themselves, and his ring, middle and forefinger were shorn off at the tips. And yet, that was the hand he braced under the baby’s head as he cradled his tiny body in the crook of both his arms and transferred him to Susan’s motherly embrace.

“A wonder that you made it home to us,” Susan whispered to a child with a shock of pale hair and Roland’s eyes. “What shall I call him?”

“Need you ask? I feel a name inside your head,” Alain said softly. He raised a thick, uncertain hand, and Susan guided it to stroke the baby’s head.

She looked at Gabrielle. “The name inside my head is ‘Roland,’ but, for all that we all loved him, it reminds me so of how he died. I cannot weigh our baby down with a name that means ‘death.’”

Gabrielle swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded solemnly. She had hoped for ‘Roland,’ but she understood; she had not seen him die.

“What say you to ‘Orlando,’ then,” Cuthbert put in, carefully feeding his limp fingers into his left glove. “For that is ‘Roland’ inside out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have a title, folks!
> 
>  
> 
> The glove that Susan makes for Bert is inspired in part by the prosthetic glove worn by silent movie star, Harold Lloyd, who lost the thumb and forefinger on his right hand in a publicity photo shoot accident involving a live bomb. In every movie he made after 1919 (including all of his famous feature films), those fingers are fake.


	7. Alain - in Contemplation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Approximately one year later . . . The next few chapters take place during _The Wind through the Keyhole_.

There was a reason why they had remained with the Sisters so long. Namely, Everlynne had not yet kicked them out. As far as Alain knew, and he knew more and more in general, no further advocacy had been required. Of course, Susan and baby Orlando would have been allowed to stay, regardless. She was not destined to become a Sister of Serenity, but charity and sanctuary were among the order's Christian virtues, and she was, of course, a woman. Al and Bert, of course, were not, but here they still were all the same. Everlynne had her reasons.

In Cuthbert's case, it was fair plain that she was fond of him. His rare blend of contrite humility and brazen wit she obviously appreciated. Moreover, he had made himself useful. With his uninjured legs and with the help of Susan's clever glove, he was nearly as nimble as ever he had been, for he had always been right handed, save with a revolver. To earn their bread and board he trained the more athletic Sisters to craft and shoot bows and arrows so that they might defend the compound against whatever danger might arise as the world moved on and on. Outside, he went about in one of the Sisters’ rough, grey habits, and, with his fine features, he made, from a distance, quite a convincing woman. For all that he had grown into a tall man - inches taller that Alain - he was a willowy one, and, next to the gigantic Everlynne, he looked almost petite. Temporarily, it seemed he had been granted status as an honorary woman.

Alain had not - he did not and never would enjoy the freedom of movement Everlynne had granted to his dinh. However, she had her reasons for allowing his continued presence, too. In addition to the Bible of the Man Jesus, her library held a mighty trove of books of other lore, which contained, she said, “God’s secrets, lost by too proud men.” Although she did not have the touch herself, she was a long lived woman, worldly in her own way, and she had spotted the sign of it in Al’s bearing or his face immediately. Apparently, his manifestations of empathy, telepathy, and precognition were only the passive aspects of his innate ability. With Everlynne’s guidance, he had been able to coax from his body magic he had never guessed was possible. And yet, beneath his joy of his accomplishments lay something foul, which festered in his mind.

It was late afternoon, just over a year since they had been granted sanctuary, and Cuthbert, who had taken to sitting nights upon the Abbey roof, his bow and quiver by his side, was blessedly awake, alone, and reading in their room. 

“Cuthbert, I wish to speak with you dandinh.”

Had it not been for his own worry, Alain might have laughed to feel the incredulous retort, ‘You what?!’ spring instantly to Cuthbert's mind. That was not what he said, however. Before speaking, Bert composed himself. He closed his book, set it aside, folded his arms, and began, soberly, “I hope you are not worried for last night.”

“No.” Alain was not; although, it was peculiar how, as he felt more and more from those around him, Alain's own actions could still take him by surprise.

Last night, Susan had gone for a private bath and an extended visit with Gabrielle, leaving Orlando with Alain and Bert. Alain could understand the baby’s needs better than Cuthbert or even the child’s mother - he is hungry, he needs cleaning, he is sleepy, he would rather not be held like that - but he was not ‘good with children’ in the way that Cuthbert was. Perhaps it was because Cuthbert had held him first, or because he was dinh, or simply because sweet Bert’s capacity for kindness seemed to expand boundlessly when faced with youth and innocence, but Roland’s little boy took to him like, well, a child to its father.

“He’s tired,” Alain had informed Cuthbert, passing him the screaming child. “He wants his mother.”

“Hungry?”

“No, just picky.”

“Ah. Well, Lon shall have to be content with me.” Cuthbert bounced Orlando on his knee in rhythm to his speech. He cooed and gibbered and rocked and petted and prattled on and on about boyhood adventures with Roland Alain had not been party to, and, eventually, he coaxed the babe to sleep upon his chest.

In the silence that followed, Alain had practiced meditation, and Cuthbert had drifted off to sleep, himself. 

This, in itself, was not unusual. It was summer and light out very late, and Bert could doze an hour or so before his nighttime watch.

What was unusual was what happened when Susan returned. As silently as any gunslinger, she slipped into the dim, candlelit room, and her expression softened at the sight of Orlando and Cuthbert fast asleep. Rather than wake the baby, she had silently tiptoed to her bed and beckoned Alain over to say goodnight.

Al had squeezed her hand as was his custom on a night like this, but then he had been sluggish to remove himself to his own cot. She was so beautiful, dear Susan, and so strong in mind and body. How astounding that she had borne this child inside her! How astounding that, with Roland gone, she was still here with them! The way his mind had wrapped itself around hers as she suffered through the agony of childbirth had been the most intense experience of his life - that she had allowed him that intimacy, that she had found his mind a comfort . . . And proximity and ka-tet had brought them even closer since.

The dim light flickered off of Susan’s bright, grey eyes. She sat up and touched his face and wound her slim hand in his hair. The mutuality of their desire struck him like a blow to the back of the head, and he lurched forward and met her lips as she reached up for him. They kissed, and, somebow, equal participant though he was, knowing and feeling all he did, he had been shocked that it was actually happening.

That first exhausting night when Al had cradled Cuthbert’s limp and bloodied body atop Glue Boy as he carried them on down the Western Road by night while Susan walked beside, Alain had wondered how long it would be before Cuthbert assumed Roland’s other role as Susan’s lover. At first, he had been jealous at the thought. From early adolescence, Cuthbert had proven an indiscriminate flirt, and it had been easy to predict a future in which he would lead a string of willing, eager boys and girls to bed. For years, Alain's most prized masturbatory fantasy had been about the day he might be one of them. Now, it seemed very likely Cuthbert would instead settle, at fifteen, into a lifelong, monogamous relationship with the most lovely and desirable young woman that Alain had ever seen. By accident, Alain had felt so much of what had passed between her and his fallen dinh - that love and lust and intimacy fueled his second most prized (rather more guilty) fantasy - and she was bright and clever almost as Cuthbert, which only enhanced his attraction. And yet, it had not been too difficult for Alain to put aside his jealousy - of both of them - with the thought that their union would do Cuthbert good and ultimately strengthen their ka-tet.

Indeed, Susan had lain once with Cuthbert. It had been the night after his prostitution to the blacksmith, while Alain was at work curing meat from the deer they had slain with their costly knives, and, right in front of him, Susan had taken off her clothes and asked Cuthbert if he had ever lain with a woman and encouraged him to love her and to feel her love. When the moment actually came, Alain had not felt jealous in the least. His physical desire for both of their very attractive bodies was far eclipsed by his desire for them to be safe and whole. Respectfully, he had turned his back, but he had felt them, and their lovemaking had felt . . . ritualistic. That is not to say it had not been emotional and meaningful. It had; it had been cleansing. Bert had been raised to think of himself as Roland's property, and he had embraced the role in his own fiery, unsubmissive way and made the boy his closest friend, besides. Now, nothing could truly eliminate the hole that Roland's death had left, and most of what had happened since had carved it wider, deeper still. Contrariwise, the way that Susan cherished him had made some headway towards sealing it up. After a spate of earnest questions, awkward guidance, and a great deal of audible shifting on the lumpy ground, the both of them had wound up satisfied, and, afterwards, the lingering sexual attraction between the two had settled into a comfortable blend of aesthetic appreciation and friendship.

Following this borderline catharsis, Alain had felt Bert tuck his sexuality away. It was not gone but rather set aside, suppressed, for now, into invisibility. As he had frankly said to Everlynne, Cuthbert had other things on his mind, and his carefully ordered priorities had likely contributed to their extended stay at the convent. For Everlynne, Alain could tell Bert's plain embrace of at least temporary celibacy smacked of penitence and self denial - qualities her order valued highly. For Gabrielle, his lack of overt sexuality seemed child-like, a painful and comforting reminder of bygone days and her lost little boy. For Susan, it removed temptation and thrust her wanting body towards Alain. And, for Alain, although he mourned the loss of the free spirit he grew up with, it represented Bert's commitment to his role as dinh. 

And it thrust him right back towards Susan, too.

The bedtime kiss was brief. 

The baby burbled, and they had both looked over to see Cuthbert’s dark eyes open wide. 

Time froze, and Alain had worried that Cuthbert might feel betrayed after all - not for himself, but for the sake of Roland, dead and gone.

But, no. With baby Orlando cradled to his chest, he had sat up very carefully and whispered to the child, “Come on, Lonny, you and I are due an evening stroll before my watch,” and silently slipped from the room.

The blessing of their dinh implied, Alain and Susan had utterly failed to use this private moment to discuss their altering relationship. Suddenly alone, their bodies had remembered they were in their teens, in spite of everything still young and ripe and hard and wet and . . .

“Dandinh?” Cuthbert prompted. 

Although plainly somewhat rattled still by the request, Alain's distraction seemed to have given Bert time to rally his confidence, and now he wore a wicked smile at the thought of what its substance might have been. Good. Cuthbert's self worth had been tightly bound inside his role as dinh. That solution was less than ideal, but today it was Alain's own soul that itched his conscience, and he did not have it in him to take on the weight of Cuthbert's fractured psyche, too.

“The skin-man is what worries me,” Alain began.

“Aye, he worries us all.” 

The skin-man was the reason for Cuthbert’s nightly watch. Five nights ago Alain had felt the spirit of the thing crawl out of Todash darkness and into some man, and Everlynne had kept her people all inside and safe on his advice - thankfully, for the shapeshifting monster had since made mincemeat of the Abbey’s fowl. Unfortunately, although Alain could feel the darkling evil of its presence on this plane, he could not seem to track it more specifically than that.

“You and I will kill the thing,” Cuthbert assured Alain.

Alain shrugged. “Hopefully. That is not my full worry. Bert, what am I?”

Cuthbert’s eyebrows shot into his hair. “A highly dramatic fellow?” he suggested. “A cherished, loyal friend? From Sue’s expression as she rested in your arms when Lon and I returned, a competent lover.” He winked.

Alain exhaled. 

“Perhaps I need more information if I am to guide your heart.”

That assessment was probably true. Alain nodded and tried again. “You are . . . the way you are, Cuthbert, and Everlynne has her reasons for accepting you.”

“Tactful.” Cuthbert’s tone was wry. He fingered the coarse, grey habit lying, folded, next to him. Rarely did he wear it in their room.

“That is to say that she admires your self denial, helpfulness, and wit.”

“Much better.”

“But I - I think she lets me stay because she does not think I am a man. That is, I am a man in figure and desire . . .”

“And in action, last night, I should think.”

Alain pressed on. “But I am not human.”

Now, Cuthbert scoffed. “And what are you then, Al? Because I now think I thought too hard when you asked me before. My answer is amended: Al, you are a man.”

“As much as the skin-man is, perhaps. One touch of magic and he is a monster! Everlynne is a Christian nun, and so she speaks of God instead of magic: the Man Jesus is the Son of God, but God has touched me, too, she says. I am not of her faith - how can we know that I am not a skin-man my own self?”

“Because you have not eaten anyone?” Cuthbert suggested. “Touched by God but not God’s son - why, then, you are God’s bastard! Fitting for a nameless, wandering wretch.” He grinned.

In spite of his ill mood, Alain smiled back. “And this is your advice, dandinh?” 

“Al, you know well that I am years from twenty, still, and never earned my guns. Dinh, you and Sue and ka, maybe, have made me, but I flounder in my inexperience.”

Alain shook his head. “We’re all alive and safe. I’d say you’re doing rather well.” 

“Say thankya, aye, and so are you. The things that you have learned - the healing spells, the glamors. These are not the work of monsters.”

“The healing spells, maybe, but I am shit at them. They dull pain, but they do not heal well, and, furthermore, whenever you are in the room, I pull the energy they need from you and not the earth.”

“So you say, but why the worry if I make the effect stronger? It is not painful. I am glad to give.”

“You are too giving!” Alain snapped.

Cuthbert’s smile turned nasty. “And here I thought you had come for advice. You’re out of luck; I’ve given too much for the day.” He flicked his wrist at Al as though to shoo him off.

Alain was not deterred. It had been impolite to criticize Cuthbert’s behavior in the wake of Roland’s loss, but his concerns were valid. Cuthbert could waste away in aid of his ka-tet, and Alain might endanger them all. He went on: 

“And the glamors - such disguises are just the thing a monster would create!” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “That damned pink orb, the grapefruit? It offered me power - the power of destruction. Since I looked into it I have become more powerful, and I can feel it in my spine, my sinuses, my fingertips - destruction would come easily to me.”

Cuthbert smiled. It was not a grim, sardonic smile, this time, either, but his old, sweet one. “Of course.” He swung his feet onto the floor and patted the spot beside him on his cot. “Be gentle. This is my first time.”

Shocked into silence, Alain sat. Bert took his closest hand, his right, between both of his own - his left was gloved as usual, but his right was not, and Alain felt the contrast of his soft skin and his calluses, and he felt the sincerity of his advice.

“I think we have come to the point where I am required to give you something more than my poor wit,” Bert began. “The world I am still learning, but you, Alain, I know quite well, touchblind though I may be. You are a man - a person - and a good one. I may cut a dashing figure in this habit here, but underneath it I’m no more a Christian than I am a nun. The universe is too complex for only one philosophy. I am not a nun, and, underneath that face and all those pretty golden curls, my friend, I know that you are not a monster. The pink grapefruit found your worry, and it poked at it - to tempt you, yes, but also so that it could make a sore spot if you did resist. In Mejis, you and I were on the cusp of manhood. You have a beard coming, Al. Your power is maturing, too. And don't forget that you are I were once bred to be gunslingers.”

Alain nodded. That once familiar word now sounded almost foreign upon Cuthbert's lips.

“We are not gunslingers, Alain, but we are killers, still. Even without the skin-man I would not need your touch to know that this reprieve is nearly at an end. The wind and water take more lives than any gun. Not everything that can destroy is evil.”

Alain considered. “If I could harness it, maybe, but the books describing those lost arts are safe in Gilead, not here.” He cast a glance for the first time at Cuthbert's book. It was familiar.

“One problem at a time,” Cuthbert was saying, but Alain's mind had moved on already.

“Everlynne was looking for that!”

“And Everlynne may have it back directly!” Cuthbert let go of Alain's hand and smacked his palm down hard upon the volume’s leather cover. “‘Tis no good that I can tell save for inspiring nightmares. A demon like this one it postulates might be destroyed by a religious symbol or by blessed water, garlic, sunlight, rose thorns, silver, running water, or the incantation of one of a hundred holy prayers. When we have found the thing, we can try the whole list. One is bound to work before we're swallowed.”

Alain laughed but quickly sobered. “And how are we even to find it, Bert?”

“One problem at a time,” he said again. He pulled his habit on over his shirt and breeches, tucked the book under his arm, and headed for the door. “Rest your thoughts, Alain, and something sweet may come to you.”

Alain smiled. He realized he had almost forgotten the heart pain that had made him beg to speak dandinh. Be gentle his first time, indeed. Somehow, with his self deprecation and off color humor, Bert was a natural at this. 

“How did you get so wise?” Alain asked before Cuthbert could close the door behind him.

He flashed a grin through the rapidly narrowing crack and quipped, “My elders beat it into me.”


	8. Susan - in Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains brief smut. Nice, lovey-dovey, not-a-Bad-Thing smut.

The day was stifling hot in the sunlight, so Susan sat upon the shaded stone porch behind the Abbey while Orlando rolled and scooted through the nearby grass. It was much cooler in the shade. To rise and take a step forward and hunker down to scoop the child into her arms and plunge back through the door and bolt it would take less than seven seconds, she was sure. Awareness of her surroundings, plans for escape and attack: Alain and Cuthbert had trained her to keep these always on her mind. She had begun imagining how to secure Lonny from attack even before the skin-man threat. Speculation was that this monster only transformed from man to ravenous beast at night, but Susan was not taking any chances. Rise, step, hunker, scoop, plunge, bolt. Orlando giggled as she ran through the steps in her mind. Seven seconds, perhaps only six. In spite of the danger, it seemed a cruelty to shut the child up indoors.

The door behind her opened, and Susan’s hand was on the hilt of her machete in an instant. Both she and Bert had cut the bottoms from the right hand pockets of their habits so that they could reach the knife sheathed in the belt they wore below. Although Cuthbert had worn this weapon when they had arrived, the machete was Susan’s knife, selected for her by her dinh before she knew enough of what their needs would be to confidently choose one for herself. 

She remembered her tentative whisper of, “I don’t know what to choose.” It had not been until that horrible evening when she sat holding Alain’s hand in the unfortunately not quite silent smithy that the grim reality of exile had really settled in. Proud and full of youthful defiance she had been when she slipped out of Gilead with the romantic notion of joining up with Roland’s friends, and she had never once regretted her decision, but, at first, she had not understood the cost; they were not only exiled but wanted. 

When asked to choose a knife for her, Cuthbert had first glanced at the scissors, and Susan had swallowed her offense - scissors were for 'women’s work.' But, he had chosen the machete instead.

“That’s a shortsword,” the blacksmith had insisted.

“It’s a cleaver.” Susan had surprised herself. A hefty knife could be for 'women’s work,' too. She had been gratified to see a little bit of Cuthbert’s hollow pallor fade with the resulting grin.

It was a cleaver - on the road, Susan and Alain had done most of the cooking together - but it was also a shortsword, and it gave Susan, shortest among them (barely), a nice, long reach. Often, before her belly swelled large enough to make her cumbersome, she had sparred against Cuthbert with his hunting knife or a long stick or against Alain with his quarterstaff once his leg was well enough for him to stand his ground. At the convent, it was more difficult to practice fighting hand to hand, but they had found time and space upon occasion, and, since she had begun joining Cuthbert as he taught the Sisters, her archery had certainly improved.

“Warm, isn’t it,” Cuthbert remarked. 

Susan loosed her grip on her machete. It had been extremely unlikely that the person who had opened up the Abbey door would be a threat, but Susan was always ready.

In his habit with his hood up Susan had nearly mistaken Bert for Gabrielle, who was almost as tall as her much younger second cousin and remarkably similar of face. Susan would have been glad to see either of them, but she was gladder still her visitor was Bert and not Orlando’s grandmother, whom it was still difficult for her to separate from that horrible day in Gilead’s infirmary almost two years ago. 

Cuthbert sat down next to her and flopped his hood back, and Orlando cooed at the sight of him and crawled onto the porch to climb into his lap. He reached a chubby hand towards Cuthbert’s face, and Bert lifted him up so he could pinch his long and crooked nose. 

“Aye, summer has come upon us. Would be fair pleasant to overnight it in the woods compared to when we did it last,” Susan mused, testing his intentions.

Cuthbert nodded. “Fair pleasant indeed. The winds have changed, or so the sailors say. We are not sailors, but . . .”

“Alain believes the skin-man is an omen.”

“Oh, Alain is tangled up in magic things these days and maybe evermore. Omen or not, it is our signal - we shall make the Abbey safe and then depart. Word will get round, and eyes that have forgotten Gabrielle and Everlynne my turn towards Debaria. Why don’t you take a rest while we have beds to take them in? I slept late, and ‘tis Lonny’s time to try to straighten out my nose.”

Susan laughed and kissed him on the cheek and slipped into the blessed cool of the stone building. With his longer reach and years of training, Bert could have Orlando safe in five seconds or less, even if he let him wander back into the grass.

Alain was in their bedroom, of course, lying on his cot. When he saw her he guffawed. “You’ve been with Bert, I wot. ‘And something sweet may come to you,’ he said.”

“A right matchmaker, Cuthbert,” Susan agreed. She sat down on the edge of her bed. With Alain on the other side of the room and Cuthbert’s empty cot between them she felt safe to speak some of the words they had been too busy to voice the night before. “Part of me wishes he had stayed.”

“Hmm,” Alain mused. Susan did not think that he was in her mind. “A right beauty, Cuthbert. Many a long day I used to hope that my first kiss would come from him. ‘Twould not have been unusual among the boys born to the gun.”

Susan nodded. “I used to wonder about him and Roland,” she confessed. “The way he looked at me before they reconciled . . .”

Alain nodded back. She did feel the first brush of his mind now, and it was easy to understand that his nod meant that, on top of his more rational irritation, Cuthbert had been jealous; although, exactly the content of that jealousy had never been fully clear. 

“He does not want us, not like that,” Alain said out loud. “He feels responsible for us, and, also, I do fear he feels he does not deserve pleasure - or cannot afford distraction.”

“Those are two very different things.”

“Maybe.”

They looked at each other from across the room. Alain’s eyes were very blue, but they were not like Roland’s. 

“Part of me wishes he had stayed, but none of me wishes you had been the one to go,” Susan clarified.

If Roland had been the moon, all dark, mysterious, and sharp in his temptation and youthful self-righteousness, then Alain was the sun, bright and illuminating and warm and soft in his concern but no less dangerous.

“That’s very . . .” Alain began and then aborted a response either to her words or to her inner thoughts. He had not been so tentative before.

“You said you used to hope that Cuthbert would be your first kiss. Surely I was not your first, last night?”

He blushed bright pink and nodded. It seemed utterly implausible. She gaped. During their only coupling, Cuthbert’s virginity had been so very obvious - heartbreaking after what he had done earlier that very day. Alain’s had not. 

“No,” he admitted, answering her thoughts. “Bert quite took to Everlynne’s description of him, did he not? Worldly, she said. Well, worldliness means many different things, and it may come to people in all different ways. The things I know - the things I feel - have always been beyond my physical experience.”

“Did you feel me with Roland?”

“Yes.” His blush renewed.

“And with Bert - I know you turned your back.”

“I felt you, yes.”

“And Bert with the blacksmith.” 

This time, the syllable seemed to tear his throat. “Yes.”

“And you felt other people, didn’t you - adults - when all your friends were young and innocent.”

He nodded. 

“And me? Just me when you were touching me like you knew just exactly what I wanted. You don’t touch me like Roland did.”

He nodded again. “Just you. I know - I feel - that ka has thrown the two of us together. Maybe, if things had been different, you would have chosen someone else. I do not wish to be his substitute.”

“In Gilead,” Susan admitted, “if I had stayed and you had not been sent away, I might have loved Cuthbert, for he has Roland’s shape and Roland’s sharpness and, with Roland dead, he has some of his grimness, too, and Roland had no brother to take on the burden of his family - that is the tradition, yes?”

“When ka allows. Siblings are rare in Gilead as anywhere now that the world has moved on.”

“I might have married him and loved him for himself, eventually, as well, for I do love Cuthbert. But, now I am a mother in exile, and Cuthbert is a sharp, slim arrow all bound up in Roland’s ghost. And you are nothing like him. I’m so glad! It is a fresh start that we need, Al.”

“Not just us.” His blue eyes caught on Cuthbert’s empty cot.

“Cuthbert the matchmaker?” Susan reminded him. “The stronger we are in each other the less haunted he will be. Do you feel something different?”

Alain smiled, and his smile was like the sun, too - hot and bright and open - not like Cuthbert’s, which was sweet like citrus fruit and left her with a tang of longing afterwards. With Al, the longing was unnecessary. His warmth was all around her all the time. 

“I feel,” he admitted, and he left it at that.

“Well then, come over here and show me just how strong you are in me.”

Their lovemaking that afternoon was vastly different from how it had been the night before. Then, they had been so suddenly desperate, and they both had been a little worried for Alain’s weak leg. All golden fire in candlelight, he had lain down beneath her so that she could ride him, thinking of the bygone days in Mejis when she used to ride all the way out along the sea. Al’s eyes were like the sea: a wide, clear blue that might go on and on forever. She had looked into them and seen home. Today, that home was still there in his eyes, but she wanted nothing of nostalgia. No longer was she that innocent, angry victim, who had looked for and received salvation in the arms of a tall, charismatic stranger. No longer was she that newly sexually awakened girl, who had admired Cuthbert for his nonthreatening, androgynous beauty and seen his crooked smile and wanted. Even after months in Roland’s bed, that girl would have been nervous of of Alain’s broad muscles and his hairy chest. That girl had grown up. Fresh start.

Naked, she fisted a hand in the hair on his chest and kissed him with her other hand on the back of his neck. Her breasts, which had shrunk down to nearly the slight handful they had been before her pregnancy, pressed up against his solid chest, and his arms came around her in return and hefted her onto her bed. 

“May I?” he kept asking, all unnecessarily. She felt him feeling what she wanted, what she would and would not have allowed.

She let him lean down over her and run his sturdy hand all the way down and rub the place between her legs and slide his fingers deep inside. So wet, she took them easily and felt him stretch her so should she would be ready to take more. 

Moaning encouragement, she let him haul her to the edge of the hard mattress and slide his harder cock inside her, first pulling her hips up towards his groin and then leaning down over her, his hot mouth on her ear: “I want to pick you up.”

“Can your leg take it?”

“Oh, I think so.”

“I’ve never done this before.”

He smiled that warm smile again. “Good.”

With her arms around his neck and her legs clasped in a tight lock around his waist, she let him haul her up and stand bouncing her carefully up and down on his smooth member. Unsupported, in the middle of the room, they were a pillar of strength, and the erotic notion of the new position, his strong body in and around hers and hers around him, straining to hold on, to not allow her legs to slip down from his unwomanly, straight hips, was somehow enough to let the somewhat awkward stimulation of their pelvises moving together and of his welcome hardness deep inside her burning hot, slick center her send her into orgasm.

“Oh thank fuck,” he gasped into her hair when his touch and the whimpers that she muffled in his neck informed him she had come. With a hand on her back and one more on her ass, he managed two more awkward thrusts and followed.

They were kissing sweetly, still suspended in a sweaty, slowly collapsing column in the middle of the room when, in what was either impeccable or truly dreadful timing, the door opened just wide enough to accommodate slender Cuthbert, baby Lonny cradled to his chest. He spied them instantly and spun all the way around two times before he composed himself and stopped, facing the wall. 

Given his none too subtle suggestion she retire to their room, Susan was surprised to see him back so soon. With matching pink faces, the couple disengaged; Alain deposited Susan upon the bed and struggled into his trousers while she pulled the blankets up to her neck.

Cuthbert did not turn around, nor did he cry their pardon. Unseen, his lips formed a name Susan had never heard before.

“Jamie De Curry is here,” he announced to the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possibly, I should have tagged this work with "Eventual Jamie."


	9. Jamie - far from Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A condensed summary of the main events of _The Wind through the Keyhole_ as altered for this AU timeline. With Roland gone, it is the Jamie show.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains some bloody body horror. New tags added.

As recently as five years hence, it would have been inconceivable that Gilead would send a single fresh, sixteen-year-old gunslinger when one of its feudal provinces requested aid. For Gilead, the action boded very ill, for it betrayed the lack of resources the crumbling city had to offer. For Jamie De Curry, the bleak parameters of the assignment came as a relief.

Although he counted himself among Gilead's faithful, Jamie by far preferred to work alone. Slow to speak, he liked, instead, to watch and listen and to think and then, when he did act, he liked to know that he alone would be responsible for his success or failure. The fate of three of his old ka-mates - dead or exiled - had done nothing to strengthen his enthusiasm for working in groups.

Nevertheless, as he made the final leg of the journey to Debaria on horseback, he braced himself for what he knew would be an inevitably dubious reception. For a while, he recited in his head the words that he would say to the town leaders when they questioned his authority, but the heat got the better of him before very long. He resisted the temptation to remove his gloves or roll his sleeves up to the elbow and instead adjusted his two bandanas, one to protect the back of his neck, the other to guard his nose and mouth, pressed his hat down harder on his head, and cursed his over-fair complexion. Which of the parents he had never known had that come from, he wondered. Fuck them both.

Parents, as well as friends and comrades, he was glad to be without. What good had parents been to Roland, whose filial duty had inspired him to win his early guns and got him sent out of the city to his death? What good had they been to Cuthbert and Alain, whose own fathers had meekly dragged their bloody, injured sons outside the city gate and left them to whatever grisly fate awaited them? Jamie had not seen the first part of the beating, but he had witnessed the gunshot, which had puffed a cloud of blood into the air and lamed both boys before their exile was decided. From the top of the West gatehouse, he had watched Robert turn his back as Cuthbert collapsed in the road and counted himself lucky to be free of family and friends to send him to a bloody death. Of course, he had the city, still, but that would be gone soon enough. Anybody who thought otherwise had been deluded.

At length, the convent of the Sisters of Serenity rose up out of the heat like a mirage, and Jamie breathed a thankful sigh. He had little hope of admittance - neither his gender nor his affiliation with Steven Deschain would do him any favors here - but the compound had high walls, and he doubted the Sisters would begrudge him if he stood a while in their shade. Besides, he had been ordered to stop here.

Although Jamie’s commander never spoke the name of his faithless wife aloud, he could be, on occasion, free with his talk of “Roland’s Mother.” The Sisters had not been the ones to ask for aid, but, at least four times during the description of the task, sai Deschain had mentioned “Roland’s Mother,” and Jamie was to call and check on her under the guise of seeking information about the supposed monster that was harassing the people of the town. Those had not been sai Deschain’s exact words, but Jamie was confident he understood the gist.

The Sisters of Serenity seemed wary of Jamie’s presence, but they were more welcoming than he expected. The gigantic prioress made the expected comment about Jamie’s obvious youth but ushered him onto the shaded grounds - though not into the building - and fed him supper and refreshing, cold tea. The Sisters had seen the thing, the prioress confided, but they were wary of the violence in the world and well prepared. It had gone for their hens, and they had shot the monster with arrows and eventually turned it away, but, being a beast of the supernatural, they did not think it had been permanently wounded. Jamie digested this information along with his meal and scanned the convent roof for unseen archers aiming for the figurative target on his unprotected back. 

The prioress saw him looking and smiled a smile that made him swallow hard. Roland’s Mother patted his arm and filled up his tea.

“Be sure to drink up plenty. The sun is cruel to travellers, especially when they are fair as you.”

“Aye,” Jamie agreed.

Her shorn hair, much shorter than his, made her look older - her nose and wrinkles more prominent, her hair more obviously grey - but she seemed healthy enough and well cared for. That she did not mention Roland made him more grateful than concerned. Her son and Jamie had never been close. Instead she asked him general questions about Gilead, to which he gave monosyllabic, over-optimistic answers. Then, she asked him who he faced when he had won his guns.

“No one in Gilead, sai,” he admitted. “The elder gunslingers do the training now, but it’s been judged too dangerous to risk them in that ritual. At sixteen I was deemed ready, so they sent me into battle ‘gainst the Good Man’s troops with ‘prentice guns. After, sai Allgood vouched for me.”

Roland’s Mother did not offer a reply, but her expression was that of a person who could not decide whether to weep or laugh. Further comment on Jamie’s part was probably expected.

“I am aware of the irony, Lady,” he tried.

“Sister,” Roland’s Mother corrected softly, kindly.

Jamie nodded. “Sister.”

He looked back at his place setting and finished off his second glass of tea. The huge prioress filled his glass back up again. By the time he rode out he would need to piss something terrible, but, uncomfortable as he was, it was a good feeling; it was hot, but he was not dehydrated.

“The thing you seek is neither man nor beast,” the prioress informed him. “Believe me when I tell you that it is a piece of Todash darkness that has made its home inside the body of what used to be a man.”

Sai Deschain had been skeptical, but Master Vannay had suspected much the same. Jamie doubted the prioress would be impressed to learn a male scholar back in Gilead agreed with her. He nodded solemnly.

“Good.” The prioress nodded back. “What lore we keep beyond the Bible teaches us of peaceful things; the literature we have on monsters is but vague - tales of fire and brimstone long ago composed to frighten the unfaithful. That text postulates that such a creature might be destroyed by a religious symbol or by blessed water, garlic, sunlight, rose thorns, silver, running water, or the incantation of one of a hundred holy prayers. That book was written by a man; I cannot vouch for its accuracy.”

“It is somewhere to start.” Jamie squinted at the hot sun creeping toward the Western mountains. It was time to leave. “I thank you for your knowledge and your hospitality.” He rose.

The prioress and all her Sisters rose as well.

“Stay safe, Jamie,” Roland’s Mother urged.

“Long days and pleasant nights, Jamie of Gilead,” the prioress said.

Jamie stuck out a heel and bowed low over it. “And may you have twice the number.”

He bid the lot of them farewell and rode on toward Debaria proper. What he found when he arrived was a ramshackle mining and ranching community, a veritable moral vacuum full of drunken carrousers and tired workmen. He was not optimistic in his speculation about whether - should he rid them of their skin-man - gratitude would be enough to urge these men to fight for Gilead when the imminent need arose. Ungenerously, he mentally wrote the whole lot off as cannon fodder if they came at all. However, his assessment of the town would not affect his work, in which he took great pride. He met the Sheriff, listened to his information, agreed that it seemed most likely that the skin-man had once been one of the workers at the nearby salt mine, and, finally took his rest in an empty jail cell, grateful for the solitude and isolation it afforded. 

In the morning, he paid a visit to the smithy so that he might arm himself to have the greatest chance against the monster when he found it. He was not alone. Another man was already there, discussing silver arrowheads. He was a tall man although not so tall as Jamie, who, having achieved his full height in the last year, was among the tallest of the gunslingers. The stranger was also very slim and narrow, head to foot, and dressed in woodsman’s raiment - not the garb of one who sold wood in the market but the costume of an ancient woodsman, a ranger of the forest. His greying, coal black hair hung down about his shoulders, and his olive skin was creased with sun damage and wrinkles. His nose was badly broken, and all around his left eye puffed a lumpy scar, which culminated in a slash that must have nearly taken out the eye itself.

“Hile, gunslinger!” the woodsman said. “I had heard word that there was such in the town, and now I see that you are real, young though you may be. My name is Ywain of the Forest, and I have come to hunt the skin-man, too. To help you or to race you, whichever pleases you most.” He grinned.

Gloveless in the less brutal sunlight of early morning, Jamie was surprised the stranger’s gaze had never lingered on the prominent port wine stain on his hand, which stood out like blood against his otherwise pale skin. The pigment of the stain was darker even than the freckles on his face, which had, he was sure, multiplied aplenty on his journey here. A single minded fellow he must be not to stare, for every new acquaintance stared, even the most polite.

“I am not looking for a partner,” Jamie informed Ywain. “Which forest is your home?”

“Why, all of them! I am a hunter, and I have come for the biggest game of all.”

“And what is it you hope to gain? Just sport?”

“Sport and a bounty, if there is one. Glory.” 

Jamie nodded. He paid the blacksmith half up front to commission a brace of silver shells and stated his intention to wait until they were completed. It could be dangerous to hunt the thing without some sort of superstitious weapon, and silver was the only one that he could shoot.

“A race it is to be, then.” Ywain grinned again and stuck out his right hand, which, unlike Jamie’s was already gloved.

Jamie shook it and was glad to be rid of the glory seeking idiot when he collected his arrowheads and left. And yet, two hunters might challenge the skin-man, and a silver arrow might lame the monster before it ate the woodsman up, and then Jamie would have blood to track and a wounded beast to put down.

His plan to avoid partnership with Ywain of the Forest was stymied almost instantly, however. As soon as he returned the the Sheriff’s office, he was called to the scene of a recent attack, and the woodsman was already there.

“Ill met this time, gunslinger,” the fool man called. 

The smile on his face belied his words, but it was short lived. If, for whatever idiot reason, the man was truly pleased to see Jamie, it was clear he was not likewise pleased to witness such mindless carnage. Together, they walked and inspected the mangled and half eaten corpses of the farmer, his wife, and near every one of his hands - all but the three who had been camped out with the stock, heard the screams, and raised the alarm. 

Since Ywain was not his partner, Jamie felt not obligation to give voice to his observations and deductions, but he spared a glance or two at the ranger’s sharp, green eyes as they took in the the shredded bodies of the men and women and the shifting animal tracks that led from one ranch building to another: bear, bull, cat, man. By the time they had seen all the corpses and Jamie had come to the conclusion that the skin-man had made a conscious decision to come here for his massacre, he felt a little ill, and Ywain did not look much better.

“It came here as a man and left as one as well,” Ywain commented. 

Jamie took note of his choice of pronoun. His companion was utterly disgusted. “Aye,” Jamie agreed.

He was about to hie himself to the salt mines to look for a likely suspect when the moaning started, and Jamie uncovered the child.

Jamie was not keen on children. He was well aware that, as recently as the previous year, he might have been considered a child himself and that many people, outside Gilead especially, would be skeptical of the guns on his hips and consider him one, still. However, uneager as he was already to converse with reasonable adults, talking to children of twelve years or less made him spectacularly uncomfortable. In the space of four years, puberty and war had made so young a child, especially one not born to the gun, a foreign entity. Ywain of the Forest had no such qualms, however, and, for the first time, Jamie found that he was grateful for his presence.

With cunning kindness, Ywain extracted the boy’s name (Bill) and his role (bunkhouse boy, cook’s son) and exactly what he remembered about the previous night’s attack (nothing at all). He told the lad that he had earned the nasty scar on his face fighting monsters and that he and Jamie would get rid of the skin-man. Then, he turned to Jamie.

“I don’t suppose you know a coin trick that might please the lad? Only, I heard the gunslingers were masterful with shiny objects.”

Jamie gritted his teeth. A few gunslingers he did know who could hypnotize a man by rolling a revolver shell across their fingers. His old ka-mate, Roland, had been especially talented at such, for the treacherous magician, Marten, had shown him how to do it long before they had been scheduled to learn the trick from Master Vannay. Jamie knew the fundamentals, but mind tricks were not his expertise. Puzzles he like well enough and maps and shooting things with guns or bows or bahs. 

“Not a good one,” he admitted.

“Oh, give it a try,” Ywain encouraged, apparently keen to see the legendary trick in action.

Jamie grimaced, but he pulled a shell out of one of his guns and set it on his knuckles. “Look here, Bill,” he said awkwardly.

“That’s never a coin,” Bill objected.

“Oh my, no!” Ywain cried as though Bill were very clever to have noticed. “That’s a revolver shell. Don’t you know that Jamie is a gunslinger of Gilead? The people of Gilead are magic, Bill, and, with his help, you’re going to remember what happened last night - only you’re going to be safe with me and Jamie - and you’re going to help us find the monster so it never happens again.”

“Not little me?” Bill was in awe.

“Oh aye! Now, relax, Bill and look at Jamie’s hand. See how clever his hand is? Watch that shell spin, golden and lovely, like a shooting star.” 

He crouched down next to the boy and lowered his voice to a whisper. Bill’s eyelids drooped as he rolled the shell along his fingers, slow, then fast, then slow. He did have clever hands, as clever as Roland’s had been, but his mind was not meant for touching other minds, not with cunning, soothing chatter, not with magic.

“Look at that, Bill,” Ywain’s soft whisper was comforting, mesmerising. “See it disappear and spin and slow and speed up and now close your eyes and see it still, Bill. There it is, a-spinning.”

“Yes,” Bill murmured, eyes closed now.

Ywain grinned over at Jamie. Perhaps having a partner was not always a detriment. “Now, do you hear Jamie, Bill? Follow that shooting star down deep and listen to Jamie of Gilead.”

“Hear me, Bill,” Jamie tried softly.

“Gunslinger, I hear you very well.”

Ywain did not speak again, but he made several helpful hand gestures as Jamie awkwardly guided the trusting child through the bloody horrorscape of the previous night’s memories. The boy had seen the man in human form, and had recognizable tattoos.

Afterwards, what happened next seemed to have occurred in the blink of an eye. In reality, it took them hours to reach the miners’ camp on borrowed steeds. The culprit was identified quickly enough, but, fleeing in the form of a wildcat, he led them on a long, exhausting chase before they were able to flank him well enough to shoot. Jamie’s silver shells were precious few.

In the end, Ywain stuck two silver tipped arrows into the monster, and it reared up in the form of a giant snake. The woodsman's horse - bred for ranching, not for battle - panicked and threw him down. The snake struck faster even than Jamie or any gunslinger could draw, but it missed the nimble ranger and sank its fangs into the horse instead. Then, Jamie shot the monster through the head. 

Blood and brain shot into the long grass, and then the monster’s body began to quiver. Bones erupted out of the limbless serpent’s sides, and wolf hair grew straight out of them. Then, man skin coiled up over the thing’s new arms and legs and its suddenly human head, more than half obliterated by Jamie’s rifle shell. That head had been much smaller when he shot at it. 

The horse Ywain had borrowed screamed for a while like a human woman as the place where the snake’s fangs had sunk in burned and boiled. Jamie shot it, too, to put it out of its misery or to prevent the monster from taking root inside the beast instead. As the prioress had said, little was known about the skin-man. Silver had worked, however; although, there was nothing to suggest an ordinary shell might not have been exactly as effective. He would tell the Sisters what he knew when he rode back that way. Perhaps they would take in the orphaned child.

“A fine shot!” Ywain cried, still leaning back upon his elbows on the grass. The body of the miner lay but inches from his foot. “I thank you, for I reckon that the next strike might have had me.”

Jamie dismounted. “You are welcome to the bounty if there is one. ‘Tis back to Gilead for me. I was not looking for a partner, but I found one. I appreciate your help.”

Jamie was left handed, and so it was with that hand that he reached down to haul the woodsman to his feet. The ranger grasped his hand with his own left, and Jamie tugged, and he felt how three of the fingers on his left hand did not separate and how most of the fingertips inside of Ywain’s glove were false. How odd. 

And there were other odd things, too: He thought of how Ywain had known about the hypnotism trick, which was not near as widely practiced as he had implied. He thought of how the stranger had paid no attention to the prominent stain on Jamie’s own hand, red as blood. And, finally, thought about that long ago gunshot and that puff of blood, and a remarkable, impossible idea filled his brain. But, it was not impossible at all, he realized as he looked up from that hand. Had not Alain Johns that was had some manner of magic in him? Even Master Vannay did not know enough to turn the theories in his books into real spells, but his two former ka-mates had been out of Gilead more than a year.

With his idea in his mind, he looked into the woodsman’s face and realized as though he should have noticed all along that he was not a grizzled ranger after all but sixteen-year-old Cuthbert, who had dark brown eyes instead of green and chestnut hair instead of greying black and skin that was not pale like Jamie’s but still several shades fairer than it had seemed moments ago - fairer, even, than Jamie remembered it, for, he now guessed, Cuthbert had not been in the sun much these last many months. His nose was broken, aye, just like Ywain’s, but the scar around his left eye was a subtler, flat, red, thin line scar and not a lumpy white one.

Cuthbert must have caught sight of the recognition in his face because, an instant later, his damaged left hand still gripping Jamie’s with surprising strength, he had a knife at Jamie’s throat.

“My, my, aren’t we clever,” Cuthbert said, his voice somewhere between a hiss and a drawl. It was the same voice, Jamie realized, but time had passed and Cuthbert had grown up just enough that Jamie had not recognized its timbre until now.

“I did not plan to draw on you,” Jamie forced out. The blade caressed his throat.

“I did not plan for your to see my face. If plans were bricks I’d have a castle built.”

“That girl - I do not think you kidnapped her.”

“How very generous, but that is neither here nor there if you are Steven’s man.”

Jamie swallowed. Again, the blade bumped along his Adam’s apple. “I am my own man.”

“Oh? And where does your allegiance lie?”

“With the White. And so does yours, or we would not be here. Palaver?”

Cuthbert pursed his lips. “Alright.”

And so they stood over the skin-man’s corpse and talked. Jamie had no wish to go to war with Cuthbert, who had always been kind to him, and who had helped him here, and who had done no real wrong. What little wit for words he had was running out, so he began with a peace offering.

“Three things gave you away: your knowledge of the hypnotism trick, your hand - I saw the shot before your exile - and mine: true strangers always stare.”

Cuthbert nodded. “Say thankya.” 

“I follow Steven because he is the leader that the White has left, but I do understand when he has been a fool. When Gilead falls, whatever gunslingers are left would benefit to have you as our ally.”

“I am not your enemy.”

“And I am not yours, Cuthbert of Debaria. Or should I call you, ‘Cuthbert of Serenity?’” It was fair plain where he and his friends - one of them a pregnant woman - had been hiding, now.

Cuthbert shook his head. “No. I am glad to have helped to protect my benefactors, but we will be long gone ere you can make report. I am Cuthbert of Nowhere.”

Jamie smiled at the name. “This will not be in my report.”

“It does not matter, but I thank you nonetheless. Long days and pleasant nights, Jamie of Gilead.”

“Aye, Cuthbert of Nowhere. And may you have twice the number.”

Cuthbert laughed. He smiled at Jamie - amused, dark. “I’d say it was not likely, but, although I am an outcast, I reckon you will be a soldier before long. Shall each of us keep count to compare when we meet again?”

Jamie nodded. Cuthbert did not need his words, but Jamie did offer an answering smile. He realized he quite liked the notion they might meet again. 

Cuthbert’s smile widened, sweet as cherries, sweet as honeysuckle in the brief moment before he turned his back and disappeared into the grassy hills.

As a boy in Gilead, Cuthbert had smiled at everyone. Not anymore. A satisfying, selfish tingle thrilled through Jamie’s bones as his eyes followed the grass weaving in Cuthbert’s path. It pleased him very much to realize he was one of a select few likely ever to see that sweet smile again.


	10. Cuthbert - in Gilead

Cuthbert wanted to trust Jamie. More than that - he found he _did_ trust Jamie, for all that they had never known each other well. However, it was one thing to trust Jamie to respect him and to leave him out of his report to Steven, but it was quite another to expect the man to outright lie if Steven pressed him on the details of his adventure. Maybe Jamie would not mention him by name, but there were limits to Steven’s foolishness, and Cuthbert was not well acquainted with Jamie De Curry’s skills in obfuscation, had he any at all. Oh, he spoke well enough when the occasion called for it, but he was frank and to the point and did not mince words. ‘Silent Jamie’ was a nickname that had dogged him almost as closely as ‘Jamie Red-Hand.’ It could be, with that reputation, Steven would be satisfied with a brief report, but, if he were not, Cuthbert did not trust that Jamie was a practiced liar, nor that he would not give Cuthbert and his ka-tet up if he or Gilead were threatened. Cuthbert resolved not to hold it against him if he did. Jamie did not owe him anything.

Jamie had come to him on the same wind that had brought the skin-man and the fragrant summer nights, and he had brought with him something Cuthbert treasured almost as much as he had treasured those few final moments of friendship and trust they had found before the wind blew him away again: an excuse. Orlando was safe to travel now, and all of them were rested and well fed. Alain had learned all he could learn of magic from Everlynne and her books, and he and Cuthbert had bent the convent’s rules for far too long. If Steven did discover they had hidden there with his own wife for company, it would be better for all if they were not present when he arrived. Everlynne would handle him adeptly, Bert was certain, and if he and Al and Susan and Orlando were long gone, there would be little need for confrontation or for lies.

And so, laden with foods, fabrics, and supplies, he led his ka-tet back into the forest where they slept beneath the trees, and stars and owls and foxes kept them company. It was indeed fair pleasant, just as Susan had suggested, save for when it rained.

To protect them from the weather, they began the slow construction of a hide tent, treated and oiled with the fats of the animals they killed. At first, it was large enough to cover only little Orlando, then Orlando and Susan, and then all of them at last. Along with the deer, out of whose hide they made the tent, they killed other, smaller animals for food and began to collect their furs, for Cuthbert had a plan. 

As summer came towards its end, the three of them sat next to a stagnant pool, swatting at gnats as they admired their reflections. The Sisters of Serenity did not keep mirrors, so the last time Bert had seen his own reflection had been the last time they did this. Then, in the Abbey, they had made their own reflecting pool inside a tin pie pan. 

Alain was much better at glamors than he was at healing spells, but they were still tricky. Anyone, including the caster, who knew the true identity of the subject, would see through the guise when looking at the glamored person in the flesh, and so a mirror was required. Probably, the spells were designed for spellcasters to cast upon themselves, but that was not how they were using them. Although he needed his staff only for long walks, Alain was ultimately too slow for a covert operation, and Orlando was far too vulnerable for them to leave him with Alain alone even though Susan had become almost as quick and stealthy as Bert. Orlando's safety was the priority, and the night would hide one thief more easily than two. Besides, Cuthbert was expendable.

He did not plan to fail, however. Very still he sat upon the soggy, buggy bank as Alain mouthed words he could not hear and combed his fingers through Bert's dirty hair. In the still pond, Bert saw it lighten until it was something that a vain man might call 'blonde’ - not golden yellow like his two companions’ but dull, though too light to be considered brown. Next, Alain stroked his face. His skin edged subtly paler, subtly pinker, and, when Al’s thick finger gently ran around the red semicircle of his scar, the mark vanished, and the strange mis-pigmentation redistributed as a sparse scatter of freckles. His nose, once long and thin and straight, Alain expanded so that it had size to match its length, which hid the break completely. Finally, Cuthbert watched his dark eyes fade into a pale hazel.

“Give me a some more laugh lines, too,” he suggested. “I would appear older and rather cheery.”

Alain snorted. The skin around the edges of Bert’s eyes seemed to loosen and fold. He might look thirty-years-old now - certainly more than twenty, which seemed less suspicious than continuing to appear seventeen.

On a whim, Cuthbert tugged a long lock of hair around so he could see the tip of it. Dark chestnut it still was when he looked at it directly, but in the pond it was the faded color of wet straw. “Uncanny. I have succumbed at last to your conspiracy of blonde.”

“Uncanny, aye.” The look in Al’s blue eyes suggested he was still uncertain that he was a good and natural creature at heart. Absurd! Cuthbert was about to return to the lecture on the subject he had given on the day Jamie arrived when Alain voiced a new concern: “Bert, are you certain that this is a good idea?”

“Al, I am certain of only a few things. I am certain that I love you and I love Sue and I love Orlando. I am certain that we need more skills if we are to survive and flourish. I am certain war is coming. Now, I speculate: We might do well enough as fugitives, but, with the knowledge locked inside the city of our birth, we might do more than well enough. If I do not pursue that knowledge now, then it may be too late. The city may be shut, taken, or burned. I want a future for Orlando, not just an existence, but, upon this speculation, I will risk only myself. I do not think that I will be expected, recognized, or caught. However, if I do not return, flee here and do not try to win me back. As I am dinh, promise me this!” 

Alain opened his mouth and closed it. “Yes, I promise,” he bit out at last.

Cuthbert turned to Susan. “Promise. Promise me as dinh you will not try to rescue me if I am captured.”

“Only if you will promise to do everything you can to return, with or without your plunder,” Susan argued.

“I promise,” Cuthbert agreed.

“Then I will also promise. We will see you three nights hence.”

“Or thereabout.” He kissed them both and hefted up his pack of furs and began a careful, meandering path towards Gilead that would be very difficult to trace.

At the gate, he was searched. The guards unpacked his furs with care, clearly accustomed to grumpy merchants wary of their delicate wares, and their hands on his body were professional and brisk. They found nothing because there was nothing to find. He had declared his scissors (“for trimming the furs,” he had said), and they had permitted them. Merchants were allowed the tools they needed for their business.

Inside, he was assigned a market stall, which he would pay for when the day was done. He did good business, selling all but two furs - minks, which were rare and fine and, thus, expensive, but difficult to sell since he had not enough of them to make a coat. He paid the market organizer and the taxman and took a room at a rough, unreputable inn where nobody else would bother to remove their gloves, either. He braced a chair against the door and slept with his money between his legs, his almost empty fur pack under his arm, and his scissors at his fingertips.

The next morning, he transferred a chunk of money to his waist purse for spending and distributed the rest around his body in various pockets and folds. He slung his nearly empty pack over his back and headed back to the market, this time in search of useful goods and information. 

People were happy to sell to him. Many of the merchants and patrons remembered him as the friendly out of town furrier from the previous day, and they were also glad to chat. Most of his money he spent on steel arrowheads to replace the stone ones he had made himself. He bought all that the market blacksmith had.

“There’ll be no more arrows for hunters and furriers ere long,” the smith warned. “As you’ve bought the lot, you may be the last to get any at all. No new steel for aught but the army now, the rumors say.”

“My timing is lucky, then.”

“Aye,” the smith agreed. “Best get thee out of Gilead afore you are conscripted. Castle folk aren’t good for much but killing, but they know hunters can shoot. Don’t you come here to sell no more.”

Cuthbert thanked the man for his advice. The army wasn’t openly conscripting yet, but Cuthbert - ideal soldier age in actuality - was glad that he had asked Alain to make him appear slightly older. 

On a whim, he visited a jeweler and traded his few excess silver arrowheads for two slim, braided silver rings, one of which had a pretty bit of blue-green glass set in it that made Cuthbert think of the sea. 

“For Brother Bill and Sister Tammy,” he confided to the jeweler. “They were not able to come with me. The braided ring, it is an old symbol of Gilead, is it not?”

“Why yes,” the jeweler replied. “It symbolized the strength of the first knights in cooperation, and the circle of the ring is like the round table of Arthur Eld. An obsolete notion these days, some might say.”

Cuthbert shrugged. “Strength in cooperation is never untrue. It is only that the ropes of Gilead have frayed. New ones may be woven, don’t you think?”

“Maybe for Brother Bill and Sister Tammy.” The jeweler winked.

At last, he took dinner at his inn. It was the richest dinner he had eaten since before his exile - since the welcoming feast in Mejis, probably - yet, it was not expensive.

“From what the other merchants say, I would have thought such things were rationed.”

“Not yet, stranger,” barked the innkeeper. “Them what’s at the top still want us thinking there’s something to save.”

“You don’t think so?” 

He shrugged and left to tend to other customers.

Cuthbert ate his meal slowly, taking care not to let its richness upset his stomach. It surprised him how sad he felt to be so vindicated in his guess that Gilead would fall.

At length, a shout roused him from his morbid contemplation. 

“Here, Robin!” someone called over the din.

Cuthbert looked up. That was the name that he had given at the gate and to the other merchants, both in honor of his father, whose close friends still sometimes called him by his childhood nickname, and in honor of the legendary thief. The man was not shouting at him, however. At the other end of the bar Robert Allgood himself was squeezing into a space made for him by Christopher Johns. They looked much as Bert remembered them, but they had been drinking already, he could tell, and he had never expected to find them in as rough a tavern as this.

Al’s father caught him staring. “Got your eyeful yet, stranger? A noble man drinks just as a common man does. This beer’s as good as any.”

“I cry your pardon,” Cuthbert stammered, hoping his voice had changed enough that it would not betray his real face. “I did not mean to stare. Only, you caught me by surprise, for my name is Robin, too.”

“Robin ‘o where?”

“Hemphill and the forests round. I am a furrier come to market.” He had been in that town, at least. His memory of his experience there was not a fond one, but there was pride inside it, which he made an attempt to exude as pride for his hometown.

“Come and have a drink, Robin of Hemphill.” 

Johns called to the innkeeper to fill and extra tankard, and Cuthbert carried the remains of his meal to the small table he had chosen. Against his better judgment, he sat down in the chair with its back to the door like an unmilitary merchant might. His father sat down on his left, Al's directly opposite, facing the door.

“To Robin!” Christopher Johns toasted.

Cuthbert and his father toasted each other. Bert was careful to take only a small drink. He had not tasted alcohol since long before his exile.

“What is it that brings gunslingers to such a place as this?” Cuthbert asked carefully.

“Oh,” his father began, “been to market, we have, on the way back from our campaign. ‘Twas a good one, full of ripe bloodshed on Farson’s side. Gifts for our wives we thought to buy as coming back presents and to take a private celebration afore the formal one.” He leaned forward on the table, close to Cuthbert’s face, and confided, “This is the third such place we’ve been.” He clanked Cuthbert’s tankard and took a long drink.

Bert did his best to smile. “Your wives will be waiting for their gifts, then.”

Christopher Johns laughed.

“We forgot to get them anything,” Cuthbert’s father admitted.

They had been drinking all day, Bert guessed then, and did not want to go home.

Mournfully, Alain’s father looked Cuthbert up and down. “My son was blonde like you,” he said. It was a poor comparison, but, of course, Robin of Hemphill would not be aware of that. “We lost our sons, and no coming home gifts will make our wives glad it is we who walk in through their doors, not they.”

“Taken for soldiers, were they?” Cuthbert asked in inane, feigned ignorance.

The two men looked each other in the eye.

“Taken to early,” Cuthbert’s father said.

All three of them took long drinks of their beer.

“I,” Cuthbert stammered, “I grieve your loss. ‘Tis nothing, especially to a gunslinger of Gilead, but I do have two furs left, for which I asked too high a price to sell. Minks they are, you see, but not enough to make a coat. But for stoles, perhaps?” He wiped his gloves on his breeches and fished into his pack for the two minks.

His father likewise wiped his hands upon his shirt. He stroked one of the furs. “Fair soft.”

“At no cost,” Cuthbert encouraged. Even though neither his parents or Al’s would ever know their origin, he found he wanted badly to send something to their mothers now he had the chance. “I would have brought them back for Sister Tammy, but she and I are often in the forest - we can get another. I have lost my mother, you see, just as your wives have lost their sons.”

Cuthbert’s father gave him a look of raw sympathy and, to his horror, grabbed his left hand and squeezed it tight. But, he was drunk and had no reason to be suspicious, and recognition did not dawn upon his face.

“You are a kind fellow,” Alain’s father said. “Here’s a bit of silver, and I will buy you another drink.”

Cuthbert had made little indent in his first one, but he gratefully accepted and proceeded to spend an excruciating evening sipping beer and watching his father stroke the mink Cuthbert had given him morosely as he sank deeper into drunkenness. At last, Christopher Johns, full of false cheer, bid Robin of Hemphill farewell, and the two men wandered off into the night.

Breathing a sigh of both sadness and relief, Cuthbert, who had sat with the two gunslingers long enough to slowly drain both tankards and yet remain clear headed, slipped out the tavern’s back door to use its stinky privy. Then, he hopped the back fence and, sticking to back ways and alleys, made his way towards Castle Gilead.

As he walked, he pulled a grey rag from his belt, tied it around his head, and tucked his temporarily fair hair all up inside it. He took off his right glove and casually slid his fingertips along the grimy edges of the damp back alley bricks, then spread the sooty muck across his face. After wiping his hands on his breeches, he pulled his glove back on and ducked down under the last bridge before the castle wall towards the culvert that circulated the moat water back to the river at large.

There were three entrances to Castle Gilead that should, even now, remain unguarded. They were revealed to gunslingers alone, but Bert had wheedled their secrets out of Roland on the way to Mejis. Serious and respectful as he was, Roland had always been firm in his convictions and in his own sense of right, and, in his irresistibly romantic way, he had been certain that Cuthbert would become a gunslinger - and soon. What harm was there in sharing one or two small secrets Bert would soon be privy to himself when they were not even in Gilead for Cuthbert to abuse his premature knowledge? Plenty, now that things had not turned out the way Roland had hoped.

Cuthbert slipped down to the culvert’s edge and found the invisibly narrow, slippery path along the rushing water just as Roland had described. Halfway through the tunnel, he found the equally invisible seam in the damp wall and depressed the pressure points that would open the door. Bert had an excellent memory. He closed the door behind him and descended through the blackest darkness down into the cool and humid earthiness of the old tunnel deep under the moat. When he climbed out the other side, he was exactly where he wanted to be - emerging from the ancient honorary crypt facade for Arthur Eld at the back of the rose garden behind the Great Library.

Entrance to the library was even easier. It was the middle of the night, and no light could be seen burning inside. Although the building’s doors were only open in the daytime, all the boys born to the gun were taught the combination to the intricate door lock so they could study before or after their lessons. As far as Cuthbert knew, that combination had not changed in generations. Boys sent West were not expected to gain entrance to the castle, so reconfiguring the library lock had, years ago, been deemed a waste of everybody’s time.

Inside, Cuthbert breathed in the smell of old paper and silence, and he was surprised to feel a tear begin to trickle down his cheek. He must have been saving that tear up since dinner, and the smell of his once best loved place had been enough to let it fall. Respectfully, he did not wipe it away but let it meander through the grime on his face and drip upon his jerkin before composing himself and setting about his task.

 _The Remembrances of Magic_ were obscure books typically considered useless even by Vannay. Although they were some of the most ancient tomes the Great Library held, written by scholars within the first few generations of Gilead’s settlement, so much of the Great Old Ones’ magic had been forgotten by the time the people could make paper once again that the bulk of them read like desperate stream of consciousness dreamscapes. Even to the most learned, they were borderline incomprehensible. Cuthbert loved them, and he knew exactly where to find them, even in the almost dark.

His favorite was the first, _The Magic of the Elements_ , which had the image of a rook embossed on its thick, leather cover. This book was supposed to discuss the magic that the Great Old Ones had drawn from earth, wind, water, and fire, but the theory was a jumble. As a boy, Cuthbert had spent hours irritating Master Vannay with his alternately flippant, outlandish and sincere ideas about what the words inside that book might mean. Now, with Alain’s foundational work with Everlynne to help him, he would have ample time to conduct a serious study. A lifetime, even. The least mystifying were the few chapters about how the more recent ancestors of Gilead’s scholars had returned to simpler elemental magic and found harmony with what was left of nature in the years between the fall of the Great Old Ones and the founding of Gilead. He would start there. Tenderly, he ran his finger over the the rook on the cover, and let the sting of guilt sink in at the memory of the skull he had foolishly worn and even more foolishly lost in those last months with Roland. To study these books was not a privilege but a duty.

Which brought him to the second book, _The Magic of the Tower_. This had been Roland’s favorite. Roland had never been so avid a reader as Cuthbert, never so interested in the puzzle of the impenetrable text for its own sake, but he had been fascinated by the legend of the Dark Tower, the nexus of all being, and the Beams that held it up. _The Magic of the Tower_ theorized as to how the Great Old Ones might have created the Tower and the Beams and used their magic and machines to travel between worlds and extract the power of the multiverse, as well as what had ultimately gone wrong. Written several chaotic generations after the catastrophic breakdown of the Great Old Ones’ society, which had nearly destroyed the whole of creation and caused the world to ‘move on,’ it was even more opaque than _The Magic of the Elements_ , but it was full of diagrams about the supposed design of the Tower and its Beams, which Roland had spent hours staring at. It also contained chapter after chapter on lesser interdimensional magic, which mostly consisted of warnings not to attempt it, especially now that the fabric of the multiverse was over-thin.

The third book was _The Magic of War_. The bloodthirsty gunslinger in him had enjoyed this book when he was a child - mostly for its pictures, which were beautiful woodcut prints of battle scenes and torture, decorated with a single color: red. Now that he had seen death and caused it and watched his own blood spray out of his body, the thought of them was no longer so entertaining. This book might be the most useful, however. War was coming, and he strongly suspected that Alain was correct in his guess that he would have a talent for destruction. Cuthbert and Alain might be kind men, but they were bred as killers, and no amount of kindness in their nature would eliminate that talent from their blood. Carefully controlled, destruction could aid and defend, and Cuthbert had a child to think of. 

With all three tomes tucked safely in his pack, Cuthbert took a deep breath and made a final, leisurely stroll around the place where he might once have been his happiest. With dim moonlight streaming through the windows, he recognized the elegant spines of the old journals and history books he had enjoyed, the books of legends, languages, and ancient riddles. He saw the very slim volumes written for children and stopped there, tipping first one book and then another from the shelf until he found Roland’s favorite - the story about the little boy and the five billy bumblers and cruel stepfather and the evil taxman and the friendly tiger. It reminded Bert a little bit of one his own favorite stories, the one about Arthur Eld’s knight, Ywain, who had befriended a lion on a chivalric quest for redemption after pissing off his wife, but there was a wonderful flavor of childhood innocence in _The Wind through the Keyhole_ that _Ywain and the Lion_ lacked, and it was Roland’s favorite, too. Orlando ought to grow up reading, and he should have the opportunity to read words that made easy sense and were not accompanied by gory pictures of bodies exploded from the inside out. He put aside the notion to look for _The Tales of Arthur’s Knights_ and slipped _The Wind through the Keyhole_ into his pack.

His quest was finished. He had the books of magic lore, a hundred or more arrowheads, a brace of gold and silver coins, and the rings and picture book besides. And yet . . .

Perhaps it was being in the library or being in the city, but the part of him that wished he was still Cuthbert of Gilead was itching to do something stupid and reckless. Visiting the Allgood family quarters was obviously out of the question, but it was tempting, for instance, to sneak about the castle hoping for a covert glimpse of Jamie. Jamie might even be glad to see him if he spied him there, but Cuthbert could count on one hand the number of friends he had who did not call him ‘dinh,’ and he had no wish to compromise Jamie’s position as a gunslinger of Gilead. No, if he were to do something foolish he would do it for Orlando. Orlando, who was the product of Roland’s recklessness.

Ironic, how it had been Roland and not Cuthbert who had been most reckless in the end. Roland, who had charged headlong into winning his guns, Roland, who had fucked the mayor’s gilly-to-be, Roland, who had ridden off and gotten himself burned to bits. Unpracticed at recklessness, Roland had been so honest and earnest and good that he had not even recognized his recklessness for what it was, not until Cuthbert punched him in the face. It had been too late then, however, for there had been Farson’s army and the witch and her terrible pink orb. Susan had already been called into their ka-tet, he realized now, which, it seemed that ka had cruelly ordained, could hold Roland or Susan but not both. Or, maybe, it could hold three young people and not four. Cuthbert still wished it had been he who had ridden away in Roland’s place and died. Then, Lon would have his real father, not this poor, semi-lame substitute. He might still have his birthright, though, before the city crumbled. 

Cuthbert slipped off his now heavy pack and concealed it in a thick shrub beneath a lofty tower. It was a long way up, but there were deep crevasses between the bricks, and he had practiced climbing them throughout his boyhood and was no less nimble now. With Susan’s gloves, he could do almost anything. Down would be easy - every bedroom was equipped with lengths of heavy rope to allow emergency escape.

In his heart, Cuthbert felt at peace with guilt, responsibility, and self denial. He would fulfill his promise and return to his ka-tet and happily devote his life and blood to the survival and prosperity of Sue and Al and, especially, little Orlando. That was his only purpose now. But, one last, stupid recklessness first.


	11. Steven - Bound

It was the middle of the night, and there was somebody in Steven’s bedchamber: somebody behind him with a knife. Should its unseen owner exert any more force, the blade would surely break the tender skin on Steven’s throat. However, the man was patient. Keen blade in his steady hand, he lurked in silence at the head of Steven’s bed until Steven gave in and tried to speak. Then, a gloved hand forced a gag into his mouth. 

Was this the end of Gilead? Steven thought not. An assassination this might be, or a kidnapping for ransom, but a full scale attack it certainly was not. The castle grounds were silent. 

They would not be for long. 

Steven’s hand shot out to grasp one of his guns, which lay close by upon the bedside table, but the assailant’s blade bit, sharp, into his throat. The hot sting of the first trickle of blood bloomed on his vulnerable neck, and the same gloved hand that had been ready with the gag was somehow fast enough to catch his wrist and drag it up above his head. The invader would need to withdraw his knife if he wanted to tie it there, however, so Steven waited for that moment. Then, he fought.

It was no use. Steven’s assailant had him at a disadvantage - prone, half wrapped in lightweight bedding, one thin wrist already trapped in a tight grip. The only result of Steven’s attempt at resistance was that his captor stepped into his vision, swung one leg up onto Steven’s bed, and kneed him mercilessly in the groin. Then, bracing himself on Steven’s wrist and on the knee still threatening between his legs, he brought his fist down, snakebite fast, on Steven’s nose and mouth. Already consumed by fleeting, shooting pain, Steven was briefly dazed. He choked a little bit as the blow drove the fabric in his mouth against his gag reflex, and a small amount of a slow, sticky ooze of blood and mucus leaked down from his nasal cavity into his throat. In the seconds he required to recover from such a dishonorable attack, his other hand was yanked above his head to join the first, and both were efficiently secured to the bed frame. 

Next, Steven attempted to kick out.

Safely out of reach now, Steven’s captor heaved a heavy sigh and put his hands on his hips. “Do I need to bind those, too?”

Steven stilled and looked at him. An utter stranger, lanky and long limbed, the invader was a young man with a beakish nose, his face smeared in dark grime. Dressed as a peasant hunter, the man hid his hair under a scarf, and his hands were gloved. Upon closer examination, Steven realized he had naught but a pair of scissors in his belt and not a knife at all. Steven was reluctantly impressed. With his speed and stealth, in another life this man might well have made a gunslinger or, at least, a spy or an assassin for the White. To attack the highest dinh in Gilead in his own bedchamber was a brazen act, and, Steven could just see in the darkness, his door was still bolted from the inside, which likely meant this man had climbed in through the window. Yes. The window was just to the side of the head of the bed, and, on warm nights, Steven had ever confidently left the gap unshuttered, deluded as he had been that the tower and the castle walls protected him. The stranger in his room had had his scissors at his throat the moment his feet touched the floor, he guessed. No wonder he had failed to wake sooner.

It was a pity so stealthy a man was such a low born fool to have succumbed to Farson’s rhetoric. Steven could formulate no other reason for his bold attack. A pity, but, perhaps, an opportunity as well. In answer to the man’s question, Steven shook his head and muffled what he hoped was a nonthreatening noise into his gag. If his captor would remove it, he would offer the poor, brainwashed bastard a reward for switching sides. If he could be conditioned in the opposite direction, a splendid asset he might make for Gilead.

“Good,” the strange young man replied.

He did not remove the gag, however. Instead he seemed to lose interest in Steven completely. In absolute silence, without casting eyes on Steven again, he picked up Steven’s guns, passed down from his father and his father’s father all the way - so legend said - to Arthur Eld. Each revolver he examined closely, checking them for shells, and then he searched and found with ease his stock of extra ammunition and the cloths and oils Steven used to clean his sacred birthright. The slender young man buckled Steven’s holsters onto his own hips and slid the guns into their hijacked but familiar homes. The ammunition and cleaning supplies he distributed among his many pockets. Not an assassination or a kidnapping, then, but a theft and a symbolic one. When Farson showed the guns at his next rally, followers would flock to him like pigeons to cracked corn, for they would easily believe that Gilead was vulnerable - nay, helpless.

More distraught than when he had imagined an assassination, Steven strained against the gag and forced out a louder moan. He began to kick again but succeeded only in partially dislodging his blankets. 

The thief ignored Steven, but he did not ignore the nearly silent rustle in the night black cubby on the far side of the room. At the first sign of almost invisible movement there, he froze. Darkness resolved into a figure, and the thief had one of Steven’s guns in his right hand as quickly as if he had trained to be a gunslinger. (And yet, that was impossible, for Steven knew well all the faces of the men his age and younger who had been sent West.)

With morbid fascination, Steven watched the figure in the shadows stand. At its full height, it stood a few inches taller than the thief, whose height seemed close to Steven’s own. Heedless of the stranger’s threatening pose the figure stepped into the moonlight, and soon it was easy to discern its white nightshirt and the pocked, stretched, shiny skin that scarred its hairless head. Its visage was a monstrous one, and part of Steven hoped the thief would shoot it down. Its suffering would end and Steven’s too. Somebody would hear the shot, and Farson’s man would be captured and hanged. But, that was not what happened.

Ruined as its visage was with its fragile scars and partial nose and raw, pink, fleshy lumps and hollow indentations, the figure’s blue eyes were intact. The thief looked into them, holstered Steven’s revolver as quickly as he had drawn it, and fell down to his knees.

“I cry your pardon,” he whispered to the figure’s feet, apparently in supplication. “I have forgotten . . . I have no father to forget, but . . . how? If I had known I would have burned myself before I left you there. Al looked into that thing - he saw, nay, felt your soul had left this world - he said that you were gone. I am deserving of my punishment and more.”

The figure reached its surgically altered hand toward the thief’s head and, with the two full fingers that remained, coaxed his chin up to look into his eyes. “Stand up!” Of course, he could not raise alarm with voice alone - his damaged throat and lungs were capable of scarce more than a whisper.

The thief obeyed, and Steven saw, as he came fully into view again, that his nose was not nearly so beakish as he had originally thought. Instead, it was long and thin and crooked where Steven himself had broken it. He recognized the familiar set of his sharp shoulders, now, the narrow slimness of his figure. If he could see his eyes, Steven was certain they would be a much, much darker brown than he had thought them when he looked at them before. If only he had simply shot that boy instead of wasting his time beating him!

“Roland,” Cuthbert whispered, looking up into the clear, blue eyes that shone out of that scarred, misshapen face.

He tugged off his left glove and tentatively placed his palm on Roland’s chest above his heart. Like Roland’s burned and semi-amputated hand, the gloveless appendage Cuthbert placed upon his old friend’s body was considerably damaged. Too short it was, twisted, and misshapen - courtesy of Steven’s own bootheel and his gun. The sight of it brought less satisfaction than Steven had anticipated. Instead, it made him feel guilty and weak. To execute and exile were noble, lawful things in their right place, but to mangle in anger was not the honorable office of a gunslinger or Gilead’s High Dinh. Roland stared down at the scarred hand that rested, perhaps in kinship, on the linen nightshirt that covered his delicate, irrevocably damaged skin. Steven had shared no details of the events leading up to his friends’ exile with his son - only the fact of his final decision.

“Does this cause you pain?” asked Cuthbert.

“My skin feels little anymore.”

Cuthbert put his right fist, still gloved, over his own heart. “It causes me pain here. I would have burned for you.”

“I know. I did not guess the consequences. Had I done so, I would not have sacrificed my friend to save my lover. That was not your role.”

“Are you certain, Roland? It is, now.”

The two old friends looked at each other for a long time before Roland said, “My soul did leave this world. The pink orb may have meant to fool Alain, but I was far beyond your reach. Sheemie pulled me, barely living, from the fire. We did not know what he could do. He took me to another world where medicine is more than we have here. Its doctors ‘saved’ me.” Even in his hoarse whisper, derision bit into the word. “The fire injured him as well. The journey over-taxed the power in his fragile mind. For almost two years he wasted away as I grew slowly stronger. With his last strength, he sent me back to Gilead and died before the gate.”

Cuthbert might have spoken then, but Roland pressed ahead.

“You are in massive violation of your exile. Would Susan come to save you from the rope?”

Fascinating. Not so very long ago, a single word against that irritating, insubordinate, frivolous, prettyboy knowitall would have elicited from Roland a deep, disapproving frown. In those barely bygone days, Steven had thought himself justly proud of his own cold mind. A studious youth, he had been pleased to mature into a rational man - a fine tactician, a cunning politician, a competent diplomat, and an effective general, who neither wasted men upon the battlefield nor balked at ordering them forward toward inevitable death. But, when that casualty had been his only son, the cost of victory had suddenly seemed too high. That his favorite friend, abhorred by Steven, had returned instead had only fueled the fire of Steven's rage. Now, the living embodiment of Steven’s irrationality stood at the foot of his bed.

If Roland finished what Steven had begun that day nigh on two years ago, he would regret it deeply, for, although he had a measure of his father’s coldness, Roland was romantic as his mother at his core. That core remained, Steven was sure, beneath the shell of cruel bitterness that Roland wore, as rough and brutal as the scars that marred him head to toe. With his simple savior’s dying breath, Roland had been transported from a world of medical wonders to the gates of Gilead where he had expected to be greeted by his relieved sweetheart, his doting and repentant mother, and his two smiling best friends, now surely gunslingers. Instead, there had been only Steven. Piece by piece, he had delivered the news that had crushed Roland’s spirit: his mother had retired to a convent; his friends had been exiled; his sweetheart had elected to go with them. As quietly as possible, he had revoked the ineffective price upon their heads, keeping only the exile intact, and he had not told Roland anything about the baby. What were the chances that the reckless girl had even carried it to term? He had had the servants make his son a place in Steven’s chambers, and Roland had settled in to wish that he had burned up after all. Instead, he would now die a slow and hopeless death. If the gods were cruel, it might take decades. Roland did not need his friend’s blood on his hands as well.

In what he considered an effort of unspeakably generous compassion, Steven readied himself to muffle an objection to Roland’s idea into his gag. Fortunately, Cuthbert spoke up first.

“I am of little consequence. Mourn me I think Susan would, but rescue? I am not worth the risk, and, furthermore, she made a sacred promise. No, it will do you little good to string me up. But,” a little more cheer crept into his voice, “‘tis possible she might return upon her own volition when I tell her that you live. You have a son, Orlando . . .”

Orlando. There was more than one Orlando in the Deschain family tree if one followed it back far enough toward Arthur Eld, but Steven had always thought the name was flowery and ridiculous compared to ‘Roland,’ which was strong and sure and simple.

“Orlando,” Roland tasted the name.

“It would have been ‘Roland,’” Cuthbert forged on, “but Susan could not shake the memory of how they took you from her, so we chose the variant instead.”

“You chose,” Roland guessed.

“I suggested.”

There was a long silence before Cuthbert, whose once ever smiling mouth had always been too full of words, went on again.

“He is a sweet child, Ro. All that I hear suggests that Gilead is crumbling, and, thinking him fatherless, I thought to claim his birthright for him,” he rested his right hand on Steven’s gun, “lest there be no other chance. But, when I tell Susan and Alain that you do live indeed, that Sheemie saved you from the fire and brought you back to us (I cry your pardon that I was not here to meet you, that I cannot stay now I am here) . . . some other future for your family may yet be possible.”

“No!” If Roland’s voice were not so brutalized it might have been a yell. “You will not tell her that I live,” he continued in an even raspier version of his accustomed whisper. “With you, Susan is safe. My son is safe. You can protect them; I cannot, and, in Gilead they would be visible and vulnerable. They all must remain ignorant.”

Cuthbert removed his hand from Roland’s chest and put his glove back on. It was a delicate process, and he forced Roland to wait until he had perfected the illusion that it was a healthy, complete hand before he spoke again. “Roland, I am not your bondsman. Over me, you do not have authority - not anymore. I may have dreamed by day and night that I had burned instead of you, that you had been the one to live and be the first to hold your child - a foolish fancy, that, for in Gilead such a thing would never be allowed. But, you left, Roland. You left me in charge. I will not treat the ones who love you thus.”

“Then I ask as your friend and for the safety of my child.”

“And, for that, I will keep my ka-tet far from Gilead. There is no need for lies.”

“Cuthbert, son of . . .”

“No one!” Cuthbert hissed.

“Cuthbert, if you ever loved me - if you ever called me dinh - then you will do this one last thing for me.”

“It is a weighty ask, Roland, and not a kind one.”

“I have faith that you can bear it.”

“Bear it, aye, but not gladly. It is a fool mistake to deny love, even from those who may be far away.”

“No, Bert. The fool mistake would be to introduce temptation. I am wasted, useful only as a trap! You will keep them safe and bear it.”

Cuthbert pursed his lips. “You underestimate them, Roland, but I understand your fear. I will do as you ask if you will do one thing for me.”

“What is it?”

“My . . . sai Allgood. I saw him earlier this night with sai Johns. They were a bit into their cups, but I think he will remember me. ‘Twas quite by accident, and I gave them no reason to suspect my true identity. They did not break the glamor. Please, will you tell him it was I who drank beside him in the Squire’s Rest.”

“I will do so.”

Cuthbert nodded curtly. 

“Go, then, and begone forever.”

Cuthbert nodded once again. He turned his back on Roland and hauled the escape rope out from under Steven’s bed without meeting Steven’s eyes. His own were wet, Steven realized. Large and dark, they sparkled in the moonlight even though no liquid glistened on his cheeks.

At the window, Cuthbert spoke a final time from behind Steven’s head. “Ro, does your mother know?”

Roland did not answer. He had appeared at Gilead’s gate but two weeks hence, and Steven had not yet sent word to Gabrielle. His interest in her wellbeing had dissipated with his son's return, and it had rankled him how deeply disappointed Roland had been by her absence. He may have tacitly implied she was unreachable.

“Tell her, Roland,” Cuthbert urged. “Please, do not hide from everyone.”

Roland watched in silence as the outlaw who was once his closest friend climbed out the window and lowered himself down the tower wall with Steven’s guns strapped to his hips. After a while, he moved to the window. He stood there a very long time.

His son’s precaution was unnecessary. Steven had no intention of betraying Cuthbert’s presence now, infuriated as he was. Always he had disliked that impudent, mouthy boy, and his fondness for him did not increase when, waiting for his son to take away his gag and bonds, he realized that, if Cuthbert knew that Gabrielle was not in Gilead, that might well mean that he had seen her at Serenity. Like as not, that notion was impossible to prove, but Steven cursed himself for failing to look there, and he doubly cursed his twice damned, faithless wife for failing to report them. He doubly cursed her and then thanked her, too. As satisfied as he had been to see those unshed tears well up in Cuthbert’s eyes at Roland’s words, he understood the boy was right. For now, the city walls held strong, but all of In-World’s population was in chaos. Orlando carried Steven’s blood; he might go on, guns of Arthur Eld in hand, long after Gilead was finished.


	12. Steven - after the Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven-odd years later . . .

_Where We Came In_

Steven had had more than enough of Robert’s boy’s dramatic entrances. As a child, his pretty face and pretty laugh had always turned heads when he entered rooms, usually loudly, often late, and sometimes with Roland, half shamefaced but still shyly smiling, at his side. By the time the boy was old enough to pursue the way of the gun, Steven had firmly categorized him as a bad influence. It had been to his immense chagrin when not only Robert, the proud and biased father, but also Cort and Vannay had reported that, although he earned far more beatings and lectures than any other boy born to the gun (possibly ever), Robin’s son was clever, quick, and naturally adept at almost everything he tried. That study, survival and combat had come easily to him offered a possible explanation for his devil-may-care attitude but did not excuse it.

Of course, Cuthbert’s last few entrances had been most dramatic of all: riding up to the city gate without his dinh while cradling an unconscious woman in his arms; pressing a pair of sharp scissors to Steven’s throat as he awoke, caught unawares in his own bedchamber; and, now, leaping to the aid of Robert Allgood while his wizard friend used magic unseen since before the days of Arthur Eld to put their foes to flight. Oh, Steven was glad not to lose the day just yet, but he was much less glad to look upon the smirking visage of his savior when the dust kicked up by magic cleared, and Cuthbert met his eyes over his father’s badly wounded body. 

Not quite so classically pretty as it once had been, the young man’s still striking face was as infuriating as ever. The spiky, mis-pigmented semicircle scar that outlined his left eye socket, which night and grime had hidden on their fateful last encounter, seemed only to emphasize the dark eye smoldering at it center, and his broken nose, which skewed a little towards the right, served only to draw attention to the smug and sideways smile that crawled up his left cheek. He crouched that way for just a moment before breaking eye contact with Steven and turning a serious expression toward his father’s face.

“This will need to come out as it went in,” he assessed gravely, referring to the spear protruding from the upper left side of his chest.

“I have died and this is a dream,” sighed Robert. He reached out towards his son’s face, but his hand was too weak to complete the journey.

“The ensuing pain will tell you otherwise,” Cuthbert remarked drily. He glanced up toward Alain Johns that was, who had removed his hood to reveal a head of easily identifiable blonde curls. Breathing hard, the wizard leaned heavily upon his staff. “Can you do anything?” Cuthbert asked.

Alain shrugged expressively with all his leaning weight. His eyes also lingered for a moment upon Steven’s face before they took in Robert and his exiled, grown up child. “I can help you pull it out of him. And this.”

He knelt, leaning hard upon his heavy stick all the way down. Together, he and Cuthbert propped Robert onto his side. Steven could see the spear point and its first few barbs protruding from his back. It had not pierced his heart, but the inch-and-a-half-wide hole the thing would leave when it was out should be enough to end him.

Alain pulled a little pouch from somewhere hidden deep within his cloak and rubbed his hand with leaves, then wrapped that hand around the spear shaft as Cuthbert slowly fed it through the hole between his father’s shoulder and his heart - all seven feet of it. To ease the weight of the thing coming out the other side, Steven crouched and caught the bloody end and helped to keep it straight and steady. Robert’s blood coated his hands.

When the end of the spear fell, limp, into the trampled grass, Cuthbert eased his father down onto his back, and Alain spat in his palm, pulled off Cuthbert’s right glove, rubbed the mix of spit and herbs on Cuthbert’s hand, guided it to press against the gaping wound, and spoke a string of foreign words under his breath.

“You did not need to waste your strength on that.” Cuthbert’s reprimand was without venom. He stroked a strand of hair out of his father’s face.

“Comfort is never a waste,” Alain replied. He stood again with obvious effort. “That spell drained more of your energy than mine.”

Cuthbert laughed. “I hardly felt a thing.” He smiled down at Robert and remarked conversationally, “Alain is terrible at healing spells. I would have thought a man so kind would take to them like ducks to water, but that is not how it works. The two of us were born to kill, with guns or otherwise, and so we hobble, crippled, after you all over In-World, making more cripples and more corpses all the way.”

“And so,” Robert agreed. “Not a dream, then?”

“Do I look like dream fodder?” The young man kissed his father’s forehead.

Steven guessed that, to Robert, he might, scarred and bony though he was. To Steven, this young man was the stuff of nightmares. He took a little heart to think that the reverse was likely also true, but it did not bode well if Cuthbert thought the best chance for the safety of his ka-tet was to trail after Steven’s army, picking off enemies here and there with his black feathered arrows. No, if Cuthbert wanted to ally himself with Steven then the end of everything might well be very near. Even before he acquired the use of such legendary magic, Chris Johns’ boy had had a knack for precognition. But first, there was Robert to consider.

Other gunslingers and soldiers had gathered around them now. Steven looked up to see Jamie De Curry close at hand. His typically impassive face contrasted starkly with the O’s that shock had made out of the others’ mouths. Steven had the distinct impression he had known exactly where those arrows came from all along - or guessed. Like Gabrielle, he might have even met the exiles in Debaria and concealed their location. It would do no one any good to dredge up past mistakes.

“He will not live long,” Steven assumed, turning his eyes back to his one remaining childhood friend. Soon, there would be no gunslingers of his generation left but he.

“I should not think so,” Jamie agreed.

“He can still hear you,” Robert muttered. His eyes had never left his son’s face. Cuthbert’s gloved left hand was under his head now like a pillow. His bare right one kept running through the hair around his face. “Steven,” Robert gasped. His voice grew weaker and more full of gravel by the moment. 

Steven scooted closer. He took his old friend’s hand.

“No more exile.”

“No,” Steven conceded.

“I should think not,” Cuthbert put in, cheeky as the youth that Steven once despised. “You are in my territory now. Cuthbert of Nowhere, at your service.” 

He grinned straight at Steven, and Steven suppressed a shiver. That was not the charming smile that used to seduce Roland into coming late to class.

“I should like to call this man my father one more time, however,” he added more softly. He looked down again. “Father, your final embrace has kept me steady all these years. I thank you for it. If you find my fingers in the Clearing, save them for me. Thus, I will be forced to come and look for you, however long it takes.”

Steven’s hard stomach turned a little, disgusted at himself and at the young man’s flippant words, but Robert laughed a last pathetic chuckle. 

“You humor is tasteless as ever it was,” he managed, rather fondly.

Steven grumbled, “One day, it may poison us all."

“No,” whispered Robert. He glanced briefly at Steven before focusing again on his son's face. “No, no - this bitter thing is medicine.”

Cuthbert smiled a real smile now; although, his lower lip did wobble. A tear slipped from his eye, brushed past his lip, and fell on Robert’s face. Robert blinked once and not again.

A split second after the death, Cuthbert’s show of sentiment evaporated. He did not give Robert's corpse another kiss that he would never feel. Instead, he pulled his left hand out from underneath the dead weight of his head, wiped the blood on his right hand on Robert’s shirt, put his glove back on, and grabbed for Robert’s guns, which he had dropped upon the ground when he fell back.

“Will you take these, Deschain? I seem to recall once relieving you of yours.”

Since that humiliating night, Steven had borne a pair of ‘prentice guns. Although he kept his place as dinh, he had not felt deserving of an ancient bloodline set.

“They are your birthright, Cuthbert Allgood. And, Alain Johns, I also have a pair for you. I acknowledge I was in the wrong.”

“Isn’t that nice, Al? In a moment, I may weep another tear.”

Although Steven could still see the track of the first one in the battle grime upon his cheek, he looked not likely to produce another - ever. 

“I am an artist with a bow, but I shall never bear a gun in my left hand. Susan!”

The crowd turned heads until they all lit eyes on Roland’s consort, who, having moved as silently as any gunslinger, now stood among them, accompanied by two equally silent children - a boy, whom math would place at eight, and a girl, who might be five. Both were tow-headed, but the boy’s hair had begun to darken and would likely one day soon be brown. He stared at Steven with Roland’s blue eyes. 

Susan herself was dressed much the same as Cuthbert; although, she had a sheathed machete in her belt, and the quiver on her back held only some black feathered arrows - whatever discipline or vanity had driven him to shoot with them exclusively apparently did not apply to her. Before the war, her hide leggings would have been deemed unseemly and revealing, but several of the women who had fled with them from Gilead or joined their ramshackle army as it limped its way through In-World had chosen to take their lives into their own hands rather than wait behind to cook and mend and pleasure and hope that the line held. A woman in fighting clothes was no longer a scandal or a curiosity, but Susan Delgado, mother of the stolen heir, still was.

“Here’s another for you, Sue!” Unceremoniously, Cuthbert tossed one of his father’s guns at her. She caught it nimbly. “Trixie shall have the pair together, someday, if her fancy runs in that direction.”

“I will bear it with honor, Bert.”

“Left holster alright?” He had removed both now and flipped that one to Susan before fastening the right onto himself. “Susan bears her boy’s from time to time when we have shells,” he confided as he buckled. It seemed they had no shells right now. The only purse or pack apparent in the group was a tiny knapsack borne by the boy, Orlando. It hardly seemed large enough or heavy enough to hold Steven’s old guns, much less any other supplies. “Form henceforth, they shall be for Lon, alone,” Cuthbert continued. “Now, what shall I do with a gun on my hip? It has been so long I hardly know.” As he spoke, he stood up straight and tall. As fast as any gunslinger, he drew his father’s gun from his right hip and pointed it at Steven. 

Several soldiers and the few remaining gunslingers save Jamie De Curry rushed to point their weapons at Cuthbert in turn. Jamie was smiling, Steven realized.

“No?” Cuthbert went on. “This, then?” He pointed the barrel at his own head.

“Not that either, Bert,” Susan reprimanded patiently. She shared a half fond, half grim glance with Alain Johns.

“Oh yes!” Cuthbert holstered the gun and clasped Steven’s bare right hand between his two gloved ones. “I hope my sentimentality has not doomed us all,” he muttered darkly. “Next time, they will bring their own wizard.”

With the authoritative confidence of a military leader, the living nightmare that was Robert Allgood’s disgraced son strode right past Steven towards his army’s camp. As he walked, he gave a low whistle, and three of the circling rooks swept down and set to work upon his father’s corpse.


	13. Alain and Susan - Furious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plot, family drama, sad things, mushy flashback porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains many references to death, including suicide.

Susan had never had the opportunity to say goodbye to her own father. By the time the traitor Lengyll and his cronies dragged Patrick Delgado’s broken body back from wherever he had died, alone, at the cruel hands of murderers, his life had seeped away. Nevertheless, she had kissed the empty shell of him and told herself there was some comfort in knowing that he had died doing what he loved. A stockman thrown and trampled by his horse was not unusual, however long the man’s experience. Of course, she had now been aware for many years that that had been a lie. Her mother she had never known.

Alain’s mother and Cuthbert’s had not made it out of Gilead. When the siege broke, many gunslingers and many innocents were slaughtered. For the first time, they were glad their sons had been exiled long ago. Comforted by their faith that they still lived but unhopeful of seeing them again, they had made no attempt to flee into a world that had moved on. As the city was consumed by flames, they climbed the highest tower in the keep and let themselves fall off of it. At the top of the tower, they had been hand in hand, matching mink stoles wrapped around their necks. By the time they hit the ground, their hands had separated, and their minks had floated away on the wind. But, for a moment in the middle, they had flown like weightless birds. Alain had felt it happen; the sharp pain of welcome, instant death had sent him tumbling to his knees many and many a mile away. He doubted they had felt him feeling. It was not the same as goodbye.

Two months ago, Christopher Johns had fallen with an arrow in his eye. Death had been instantaneous, the rest of his body tauntingly unscathed. When the dust of battle cleared, they had waited three days in hiding before visiting his grave. 

By these standards, Cuthbert was lucky.

Orlando was lucky, too. The boy had never known his father, but he had his mother and his little half sister, and he had his stepfather and also his Uncle Bert, whom he adored. Bold and precocious, Lonny scampered though the field of corpses to take hold of Cuthbert’s hand.

Alain and Susan followed more slowly behind. Exhausted by the exertion of channeling so much magic, Al’s whole body ached, and the old injury in his left calf, which hardly troubled him on normal days, throbbed as though he had walked nonstop for a week. He braced his left leg on his staff as he and Susan picked their way across the battlefield with their daughter, Patricia, hand in hand between them.

“This would be more fun if Papa weren’t so limpy,” the little girl remarked. “There’s lots of things to swing me over here.” Thankfully, she knew better than to tug on Alain’s arm when he was so worn out.

“People,” Susan corrected, “not things, Patsy. Even if Papa weren’t so tired from his magic this is not the time or place for games. We must respect the dead.”

“Oh.” Patsy looked down at the bodies on the ground with renewed interest and speculation.

Patricia was the luckiest of all. 

It was impossible to know exactly when the child had been conceived, but Susan and Alain both liked to think it was the afternoon they exchanged rings. A lovely, warm spring day it had been; soft grass had filled the forest clearings. Lon had been but two years old and napping, and Cuthbert had climbed a tree to watch for danger and to feel the sun upon his face. Always, he had done his best to give them private moments even if they could not strictly be alone. 

In the spirit of the lazy day, the two of them had silently undressed and joined, Alain’s bare bottom on the dewey grass, his legs crossed, Susan balanced on his thighs, her own long, slender legs around his back, her feet teasing the grass behind his hips. The position was not much for stimulation; it was made for soft, wet kisses, tender touches - perfect for the day. Their minds were joined, as well, and Susan felt Alain inside of every part of her, and she felt herself inside of him inside of her, and he felt her feeling, and he felt her leaking love and slick, warm wetness all around him.

“Perfection,” Alain pressed into his lover's mind.

“Not frustration?” Susan teased. The way they moved provided very little friction.

“One thing might be better,” Al admitted. He cupped her face and looked into her eyes. “Is it too much?” he asked in a whisper. “Is it too much if I ask you to be mine?”

Susan shook her head. “Ask.”

“I am asking.”

“I am yours.” 

They had kissed then, their lips barely touching, their tongues dancing in the tiny, breezy gap until Alain’s tongue ventured further, under Susan’s lip, along her teeth. She threw her head back, biting back a moan. Above her, Cuthbert’s boot and the vague outline of his lanky body were still partly visible, but his lookout tree’s thick, shifting canopy obscured his face. It had not bothered her to think he might be watching - quite the opposite - but neither did she wish that day that he would finally give in and join them.

“I hope that he is watching.” Alain answered her thoughts in a voice loud enough that Bert would surely hear. “A commitment ceremony ought to have a witness. Will you give me your ring?” He had already moved his own onto his little finger. 

Susan leaned forward again and hooked her chin over his shoulder as she pulled hers from its place on her right forefinger. A right matchmaker, Cuthbert, but never a pushy one; when Susan had asked where his own ring was, he had smiled at her very sweetly and replied, "Why, they are gifts." They had not worn the rings from Gilead as commitment symbols right away, but now the time was right. She slid her ring onto Al’s finger, too.

They clinked against each other in the gentle rhythm of their lovemaking, and Alain, still growing more adept each day, had channeled magic through himself and Susan and then back into his little finger. The rings began to shimmer. Clink. Clink. Clink. The rings swapped size. 

Alain fell back onto the grass, and Susan toppled forward on her knees. He was breathing heavily. Aroused and sweaty with mental exertion, he hovered on the brink of orgasm, glad the sharp catharsis of his magic had not been enough to make him come. Clumsily, he grabbed for Susan’s left hand and slid his old, plain braided ring down her commitment finger. She had returned the favor with the one with the glass jewel. Hands clasped with his, she ground down on him only twice before he came, and then she crawled up to his face, leaking their combined fluids onto her thigh and her new husband’s naked chest, and found completion on his busy tongue while, in her head, he sighed, “My love, my love, my love.”

Yes, whether she had been conceived that sweet romantic afternoon, or that night some days later when Alain had followed Susan out of their warm tent into the pouring rain and fucked her quickly from behind before she squatted and relieved herself and he softly complained that sex had made it difficult to piss, or during some less memorable coupling, Patricia was the luckiest of all. She had her doting older brother and her mother and her father, and she also had Cuthbert - the only one allowed to call her 'Trixie' - who had brought the rings her parents wore from Gilead.

Were these thoughts inappropriate as swinging as they passed among the newly dead? Susan supposed that it was only natural that she and Al should think of not just death but birth and love and Gilead, as well, as they walked dear Patricia past the bodies of men she had never known, towards the camp of that man who had barred his city's gates against the only two living men Susan had ever loved. That man who had just quickened his pace to walk at Cuthbert’s side.

“This is your father’s father,” Bert was saying to Orlando. “His name is Steven Deschain, and he was High Dinh of all of Gilead before it fell. Now he leads the army of the White against . . .” he fluttered his hand around to indicate the carnage.

“Chaos?” guessed Orlando.

“I lead my people towards something other than chaos,” Steven said.

“Good,” Cuthbert murmured. “That is good. It pleases me to hear that.”

Neither man spoke again until they reached the edge of the encampment. There, more people were gathering. Most were women in long, tattered dresses, but among them there were also hobbled men propped up on crutches and a few children still too young to fight. Next to a tall woman, who, as they drew closer, revealed herself as Gabrielle, stood a taller man in a drapey, hooded cloak. Even so attired, it was plain he was at least as thin as Cuthbert, but he was taller, and something about his posture suggested he was not just rangey slender - he was fragile; he was ill. More strange than that - for every wandering member of Steven’s ramshackle army was undernourished and exhausted, and it was not shocking that one of them should appear so unwell - was that Alain felt nothing from his mind. A supernatural emptiness it was not; he was simply well trained. A spiritual leader, perhaps? Cuthbert stopped in front of him.

“Orlando, this is your father’s mother, Gabrielle,” Bert introduced. “She knew you as a babe when we lived in the old convent outside Debaria.”

Orlando let go of his escort’s hand and made an old fashioned bow.

Gabrielle smiled and curtseyed in return. “Welcome, Orlando. ‘Tis wonderful to see you grown.” 

She met Bert’s eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly, but she did not address him, and she did not take him in her arms, and she did not greet Alain and Susan. It was as if she was waiting for something. Confused, concerned, Susan narrowed her eyes and shot a sidelong glance at her husband. Dread settled over Alain.

“And this,” Cuthbert went on, “is your father himself, Roland Deschain of Gilead, who was saved from the fires of Reap Night by a good man, simple and honest, Sheemie of Hambry, son of Stanley Ruiz. Unbeknownst to all of us, he could tear holes in reality with nothing but the power of his mind. You know that sort of thing is costly, Lon. He gave his life to bring your father back to Gilead long after we were gone." He looked into the shadow of the tall man's cloak. "Hello, Roland. While the city stood, I kept my ka-tet out of Gilead, and I did never breathe the secret that you bade me keep. But, the time has come for an alliance. Continued secrecy is unsustainable. In spite of all, it pleases me to see you here."

"It does not please me." An unrecognizable whisper drifted out from under the low hood.

"No? Well, more's the pity, for I bore it as you asked."

"I asked you to begone forever."

"And never again did I set foot inside you father's bedchamber. Nor will I ever if I can prevent it."

"Prevent it!" Steven interrupted sharply, plainly horrified by the idea.

Cuthbert breathed a little laugh, and Gabrielle also smiled, but the hooded figure put a rapid end to their amusement. With hands much more destroyed than Cuthbert’s left - most of his vulnerable fingertips had been too badly burned to salvage - he folded back his hood. Beneath it, Roland’s eyes remained, as sharp and pale blue and recognizable as ever, but his nose was mostly gone below the bridge, his flesh was shiny, pocked and lumpy and discolored, his hair and eyebrows were completely gone, one of his ears was missing and the other incomplete. The stern set of his mouth was all Roland, however, like his high cheekbones and his unchanged eyes; the familiar face hidden within the wreckage made his visage all the more disturbing.

Susan gasped and covered her mouth with her free hand. A tear slid down her cheek. Alain bit his own tongue to stop a similar reaction. Between the two of them, unflappable Patricia, serenely unfazed, blinked up at Roland in curiosity. Her brother tensed but stood his ground, bravely determined not to flinch before the man Cuthbert had told him was his father. Cuthbert himself displayed no physical reaction, but he had seen this face before, if not so clearly lit.

"I asked you to protect my child." Roland took a step forward, and now Orlando did back up and stand flush against Cuthbert.

Bert put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. "And that is why I am here now. As dinh, I judged the time had come for an alliance, and, as dinh, I will council with your leader and discuss my terms to help him end this war. As dinh, I now present my folk, though most of them you know already. Here is your son, Orlando, and here is his mother, Susan, and her husband, Alain, and their daughter, Patricia, called after another noble man done just as ignominiously to death as you so nearly were in Mejis by the sea. Patrick Delgado had no friends to save him in the end. You are a lucky man, Roland, to have so much. Have my friendship if you want it, but I am no man’s bondsman, and I have broken no promise."

It was a fine speech. Later, Al and Susan might admire Cuthbert’s clear conviction and his turn of phrase, but, for now, all they could think on was his obvious betrayal.

“How could you keep this from us, Bert?” Susan’s voice was very soft. If she had spoken out more loudly then it surely would have broken.

Cuthbert half turned back to face her. His eyes showed no emotion. “I removed temptation.”

“You did not trust us?” Alain spoke low and carefully. To withhold information was Cuthbert’s prerogative as dinh, but he had never before made Alain and Susan feel beneath him. The snippy argument, the conspiracy . . . Alain felt like a little boy again, left out of the chafing yet so enviable closeness Bert and Roland used to share.

Gently, Cuthbert urged Orlando into his own space. He turned his back on Roland and met Alain’s eyes for a long time. In that moment, his mind was shut, and his lips spoke no answer. The silence that settled over the group and their observers was as still and chilly as the dead that lay scattered behind them. More rooks were descending from the sky. One lit on Cuthbert’s shoulder and ran its beak through his long hair before he gently brushed it off.

It was Jamie De Curry who lifted the silence of death. A stranger to Susan and a near stranger to Alain, he stepped forward from where he had stood, observing, behind Steven's shoulder. So tall he seemed and confident that Al might not have recognized the silent boy he used to know but for the telltale stain upon his hand. “Hile, Cuthbert of Nowhere!" he called. "That all of us still live should be a cause for celebration. I’ve a bottle in my tent. Come join me. Later, when emotions are not quite so high, will be the time for council.”

“Tomorrow,” Steven suggested. “We all of us have deaths to grieve and lives to celebrate tonight.” 

Dislike for Cuthbert wafted off of him, but exhaustion and reluctant gratitude and grief were there as well. From Bert, Alain felt suddenly a flood of much more weariness than usual, as though a part of him that had forever been bone tired and strained had, at last, opened up. He grit his teeth.

Gabrielle squeezed Cuthbert’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Cuthbert decided. “I reckon my absence may benefit all of us most, just now.” To Steven: “I will council with you on the morrow.” To Alain: “You’ll find me when the time has come to talk?”

Alain nodded.

Cuthbert nodded back, and he nodded at Susan, too, and at Patricia and Orlando. He did not cry anybody’s pardon, and he did not turn again to look at Roland, but the sadness and mental fatigue Alain now felt from him contrasted sharply with the proud posture he wore as he let Jamie lead him off into the growing bustle of the camp.

At that signal, the remaining observers of their little drama began to disperse ahead of Steven’s glare.

“He was different after Gilead,” Susan whispered as the two of them watched Steven’s minions back reluctantly away.

“He was dinh,” Alain reminded her. Outside the Abbey walls, the burden of that office had seemed to settle upon Cuthbert with renewed solemnity and weight.

Susan nodded. “Yes, but he was upset.”

“About his father, so we thought. About his visit to the city of his birth.”

“Yes, but he was withdrawn.”

“He wanted to be stronger for us. He buried himself in those books. We had become our own unit without him.” Their romance never had been tempered by remorse, but neither had Alain and Susan cared to dwell upon the fact that, although dinh and greatly loved, Cuthbert would always be outside of it. Perhaps as a consequence, neither of them had been eager to confront this minor shift in Cuthbert’s attitude. Instead, they had composed a half a dozen private reasons to excuse the alteration.

“Yes, but it was _you_ who did not trust me and Alain!” Susan let go of Patricia’s hand and took a step closer to Roland. 

Ever conscientious, Lon collected his sister and drew her over to the side, out of the argument, to listen and to watch.

“Cuthbert disagreed, didn’t he?!” Susan looked from Roland’s face to Steven’s and then back.

Roland set his jaw. “Cuthbert saw reason when I made my argument.” His eyes had been tracking the sparkle of Susan’s silver ring as she gesticulated. He was jealous as well as angry now, and his carefully constructed mental wall was beginning to crack.

“Cuthbert made a terrible concession because of his own grief,” Alain corrected. He could almost see the scene as it had happened, now, remembered vividly in Roland’s and in Steven’s minds. Reluctantly, he reckoned it was for the best that Bert had been too shocked and guilty and too horrified by Roland’s grisly fate to sucker punch him into reason for a second time. Although, he might still have refused to do his bidding.

“A concession?!” Roland’s whisper was expressive enough to convey offense. “Cuthbert bartered for his silence. He made me face him as an equal. In return, I told his father . . .”

“Cuthbert _is_ your equal,” Susan hissed.

“Cuthbert should be careful of De Curry.” Roland countered. “He does not know his reputation and would hardly be the first handsome young man to find himself seduced!”

Susan exploded. “Good!”

Alain began to laugh. He shook and leaned hard on his staff and felt his eyes begin to water. This horrible, exhausting day was making him light headed.

"Cuthbert needs seducing!" Susan went on, on the verge but not quite ready to succumb to the hysteria that gripped Alain. More softly, she added, "Were you so lonely and in pain that you could not resist passing the feeling on?”

“No,” Roland whispered. “That is what I wanted to avoid.” He was open enough now that Alain could feel how deeply he believed this.

Al stopped laughing. “Maybe,” he allowed, wiping his eyes, “Maybe you felt it was best to contain the grief at your true fate to Cuthbert; the two of you think much alike, sometimes. Maybe you thought ignorance would keep your child safe. But, what you wanted to avoid was pity.”

Roland looked at the ground. Beside him, Gabrielle and Steven caught each other’s eyes. Their hands were clasped, Alain noticed.

“What am I now, that knowing that I live is anything but weight around your neck?”

“Orlando’s father, Roland,” Susan whispered. “Son to these people and friend to me and Al and Bert.” She sighed and sagged a little against Alain’s side. “That man who plans to seduce Bert, what did he say? Tomorrow?”

“‘Later,’ he said,” Steven corrected. “I proposed tomorrow."

"Take your rest," encouraged Gabrielle. "Tomorrow will be different. If Steven and Cuthbert can sit in council and palaver, then you three can come to an accord. There will be empty tents, but which they are . . .” 

“We have our own tent,” Al assured them. “Tomorrow, then? In Cuthbert's place, I bid you call on us when you are ready.” He gave a curt and un-subservient bow to Roland and his parents and led his own group over to a wide, empty spot nearby, limping even more badly now than when they left the battlefield.

“They are watching,” Lonny whispered, throwing curious glances back over his shoulder at his famously dead father, suddenly alive.

“Let them.” Alain abhorred drawing attention himself, but Cuthbert had insisted they make an impression. For his plan to work, it was vital that they draw the other wizard into battle, and it was vital that Steven agree to their terms. Setting up camp was a subtler wonder than the one Alain effected on the battlefield, but it certainly would underscore his power. “Go on.”

Orlando grinned. He reached into his tiny pack and began to extract the vast volume of their oilskin tent. When the entire thing was in a pile as tall as Patricia, all four of them took corners and spread the thing out flat, and then Alain spoke several words and stomped his staff, and it rose up on its own into a dome. 

“May I, Papa Alain?” 

“No, Orlando.”

“My turn, then,” Susan insisted. "Do not argue, Al. I have by far the fewest." 

Alain did not complain. He did not like to see his wife sliced open, but he understood her impulse and knew better than to contradict her wish. Rolling up her sleeve, Susan found an as yet unmarked stretch of skin and ran it over the sharp blade of her machete until it made a steady drip of blood.

Alain spoke again. The blood was sucked inside the tent before it hit the ground. Susan’s wound resolved into a thick and sticky line of rapidly coagulating blood. She sheathed her blade and held aside the flap to let the others step inside. She cast a final long, conflicted look at Roland and, at last, entered the tent herself.

Inside, it was warm and spacious, and Patricia was already climbing gratefully into her hammock. In an instant, she would be asleep. Susan felt like she could sleep a year, herself. The bed she shared with Alain hung from the magically supported ceiling, too, but it was somewhat more structured. Already, Al was sighing as he removed weight from his sore leg. 

Was it possible that she ought to be thankful that the news of Roland’s miraculously tragic survival had come so very late? Would she and Al be what they were if Bert had told them Roland lived when their romance was new? Would sweet, peculiar, irreplaceable Patricia still exist? By now, the memory of her long lost first love was but a sacred, cherished fantasy. After all these years, she could truly imagine no husband but Al. She kept that notion in the forefront of her mind as she climbed into bed to join him, too exhausted to remove anything but her weapons and her shoes.

“Uncle Bert lied to us.” Not ready for sleep, Lon lingered in the center of the tent.

“He did,” Susan agreed. “It is alright to be angry with him, but he loved . . . he loves your father very much. He used to be his . . .”

“His adjunct,” Alain suggested, “his second. And his friend - his best friend. Do you understand?”

Orlando nodded. He chewed thoughtfully upon his lip. A reserved, observant child, he took, in some ways, after Cuthbert - not so much as he had been but as he had become. Orlando did not have Cuthbert’s lightning quick wit, but he prided himself on his analytical skills, and he took every kernel of advice that Bert offered to heart. (The carefully worded lessons in what constituted humor and irreverence that resulted from this realization had been a delight.) Alain made a foray with the touch, but he could not determine whether today’s revelation that Cuthbert was not perfect - that he could be swayed by the request of an old friend into an act against his better judgment, that he was capable of deceit - had come as a blow to Orlando. The boy's analysis was, as yet, incomplete. Likely, he would lie awake long after the rest of them were fast asleep.

“It might be tempting to wander in search of more information,” Alain warned, “but do stay here tonight. Tomorrow, after the council, our place in this camp will become more clear, and you may have more freedom.”

Orlando nodded again, but he did not retreat to his own hammock. He furrowed his brows and stared down at his feet.

“Is there something else, Lon?” Susan prompted.

Orlando raised his eyes. “Mum, Papa Alain, what is ‘seduced?’”

Alain settled in for sleep. “He is your son,” he muttered, smiling, as he closed his eyes.

Susan pursed her lips at him, only mildly irritated. Although they always had been ‘Papa Alain’ and ‘Uncle Bert’ to Lonny, with Roland’s boy it was invariably Cuthbert who took on the more fatherly role. Susan supposed she had forgiven Bert - his choice was understandable - but that hardly meant that he did not deserve to suffer just a little bit for his deception. She smiled at her son.

“Well, Lon, I think that we can all agree that Uncle Bert is the best at explaining things. Why don’t you ask him when you get the chance?”


	14. Cuthbert - Seduced

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the tin.

For Cuthbert, it was an immense relief to follow Jamie away from the tense circle of his old acquaintances. Already, Alain’s anger towards him was fading - he could feel it in the way he touched his mind - and Susan’s opinion was no doubt similar. The two of them seemed always of a mind, these days. The children - Orlando especially - might be confused, but they were with their mother now. Later, they could have a full discussion. For once, he did not feel the need to take his ka-tet’s pain unto himself; this particular pain, though new to them, he had borne, lonely, for seven long years.

Grateful, Cuthbert trailed Jamie through the camp, which was extensive. Boys and men of all ages were inspecting wounds and weapons and, like Jamie, turning to the bottles they had left for celebration. Among the soldiery, he saw a few women, some of whom he thought he recognized as former Sisters of Serenity, whom he had trained when he was in his teens. The Abbey had not been able to repel Farson’s army when it came, but some of its inhabitants may have escaped. Years older and dressed as they were now in trousers and rough armor instead of voluminous, grey habits, it was difficult to be certain whether these were the women that he guessed, but Cuthbert nodded anyway, and they nodded back. 

Bert nodded at the blacksmith, too, who had a heavy portable forge and was collecting a long line of swords and axes to repair. Fittingly, it was the same man who had had him over his back table in Hemphill years ago, but Cuthbert was not worried. That man was honest enough, and it was Cuthbert who was in a position of power, now. Alain was these people’s last hope, and Cuthbert was his dinh. No lurid scandal from his past could strip him of the standing he had earned - not now that the world had moved on.

Finally, Jamie pulled back the flap of his own dirty, canvas tent, and Cuthbert ducked inside. It was dim and not as cozy as the one he usually shared with his ka-tet, but when he spotted a table set with two scrawny folding chairs he wasted no time and collapsed into the nearest one. For reasons he did not care to closely analyze, it did not bother him to show weakness in front of Jamie.

Jamie made no comment. Instead, he rummaged among his things for the bottle he had mentioned. 

“No cups.” He uncorked the bottle and passed it to Cuthbert. 

Cuthbert took a sniff: a sweet smell, plainly alcoholic. “A port wine?” He shot a look at Jamie’s dark red hand, then raised his eyebrows at his freckled face.

Jamie shrugged. “Unlabelled and salvaged.”

Bert took a tiny sip. “Say thankya for the gesture. I do not often indulge.” He passed the bottle back.

“No. I can see that.” Jamie helped himself to a long swig. “It amuses me that you, cast aside, now have more discipline than anyone.”

Cuthbert smiled tightly. It amused him, also, but this day had so far been a bleak one.

“Have the hard years trimmed away your humor, too?”

“Too?” 

“As well as your indulgence. And whatever baby fat you ever had. You’re chiseled out of granite, now.”

“Out of knotty oak, maybe. My humor has not atrophied, but it is blacker than it was. Alain . . .” he reached for the bottle a second time and took a deeper sip. “Alain and Susan are not altogether happy with my transformation, but they understand necessity.”

Jamie left the bottle in Cuthbert’s grasp and reclined upon his cot. The chair across from Cuthbert sat conspicuously empty. 

“Knotty oak has much more character than granite - no less beauty.” Jamie spread his legs a little, and Cuthbert could see his hardness pressing up against the fabric of his jeans.

He raised an eyebrow and set the bottle down. His heart rate shot up. Deliberately, to hide his agitation, he curled half his mouth into a smirk. “What are you about?”

“I admire you a great deal, I hope you understand,” Jamie said. He did not adjust his posture, but neither did he extend his arm towards Cuthbert, who sat three feet away at least, out of his reach.

“So it would seem. You flatter me. I am a fugitive, and I make do. I am my ka-tet's dinh. I do not think that I am over-proud, but they are alive and multiplying. Admire away.” He canted his chair a little more towards Jamie’s gaze so he could get a better look at him but did not scoot it any closer.

Jamie’s lips curved up into a subtle smile, and he looked. His grey eyes started on Bert’s face and then slid lower, across his sharp shoulders, down his chest to his skinny waist, around his groin where his own burgeoning arousal was completely hidden by his long jerkin, down his legs to his old boots - the same ones he had worn when he left Gilead, resoled and repaired again and again and again. Then, Jamie’s eyes swept up again in the opposite direction and lingered for a long time on Cuthbert’s thin lips before they found his eyes.

“The left one does not see so well,” Cuthbert admitted, suddenly uncomfortable with the silence and with Jamie’s heated, too admiring gaze. He had not spoken aloud of that particular infirmity since he had first admitted it to Al and Susan when the swelling had gone down. “The right one does most of the work, but I am glad not to be blindsided, if I may use the term at its most literal.”

“Have you been figuratively blindsided, Cuthbert of Nowhere?” Jamie’s smile widened briefly, then he adjusted himself and allowed Bert to catch a glimpse of pleasure in his face.

Cuthbert shrugged, again careful not to betray his nervousness. “I do not indulge.”

“‘Do not often’ or ‘have not ever?’” Jamie pressed. He leaned forward, hands on either thigh, but still he made no foray towards a touch.

Cuthbert shrugged again. His two previous experiences with sex partners - both in a single day - could hardly have been termed ‘indulgences.’ He had heard Al and Susan, seen them, even, more than once, and he had been aroused. He was aroused, now, also, but he was well practiced in self denial and uncertain what he wanted. Honestly, he answered, “Sometimes I spill upon the ground to give the forest and the fields my essence. Those times, it is not only for the ritual that I do touch myself.”

“And what do you think about?”

“Oh, wind and sky and dirt and rain and trees and birds’ wings and myself, part of the earth. It is a meditation.”

“I would like to see that.”

Cuthbert laughed. “You cannot. It is a very private ritual.”

“And would you lose the bond you made with the forest and the fields if you spilled without it? If you took pleasure in another person’s arms?”

“No, I do not think so.” 

Jamie’s smile widened. “Good.”

“But I do not indulge.” It was a tease now, and Cuthbert found that there was pleasure in the teasing, however it might end.

Jamie searched his face, those pale eyes flitting from eyes to cheeks to lips to his prominent scar.

“Can it be you have foregone all such indulgences? Have you lain with a woman?”

“With Susan, once.”

“And with Alain?”

Cuthbert shook his head. “They offer, but they know that I will not accept. I am responsible for them. That time with Susan was . . . a special occasion. But, I think you mean to ask whether I have lain with a man: In early days I prostituted myself to a blacksmith in exchange for well made knives.” 

Jamie sucked in a breath. His smile disappeared.

“That blacksmith out there,” Cuthbert continued, jerking his head in the correct direction. The blacksmith’s setup was quite near. “You saw me nod at him. Have you read the Man Jesus’ Bible?”

“I am not a reader.”

“Well, in that book they use a charming euphemism to describe the fornication that begat the bloodlines of the holy people. You may well say I ‘know’ the blacksmith, or, more accurately, he ‘knows’ me. I was not eager to repeat the experience, but it may well be we owe our lives to that man’s willingness to accept unconventional currency.”

Jamie’s teeth were gritted tight together, and his erection had receded. 

“Have I made a dent in your admiration? A blushing virgin I am not. No, knotty oak, with scars and splinters plenty, me.”

“Aye,” breathed Jamie. Now, he did edge forward to the lip of his cot, and he reached a large hand towards Cuthbert’s face. “And will you poke me if I touch?” His hand hovered in the air.

Suddenly, Cuthbert wanted that hand on his cheek. How warm and wonderful and intimate such a thing would feel. How dangerous. If Jamie touched him, it would be so easy to succumb, to open up to Jamie all his lonely, long suppressed desires. That was not how he lived. To buy time, he picked at his own insecurity, and it became a splinter: “Are you certain it is not you who is tempted to poke? I am sure you understood my innuendo.”

Jamie pulled his hand back sharply. “I only wish to give you pleasure. I admire you.”

“What, still?”

“Why should I not? You were a friend to me when I had none - and at risk to yourself. You have sacrificed much. No gunslinger dinh would practice so much self denial.”

“I am not a gunslinger,” Cuthbert reminded him.

“You should have been. I would be honored if you let me see to you.”

“And if I do not want your touch? Would you be content to admire me alone? I saw how hard the act made you before.”

“If it pleases you.”

Cuthbert smiled. Half by accident, he thought that he might have produced the old, seductive one he had retired after its last, profitable use. He made a choice. “Show me.”

Jamie looked him in the eye for a long moment, then, still holding his gaze, he unfastened his jeans and slid them off, along with his boots. Underneath, he was only half hard, but Cuthbert’s eye upon his cock made the thing jump. 

“Show me everything,” Cuthbert encouraged. 

Jamie did not need to be told another time. He stripped off his waistcoat and his shirt and sat there, broad shouldered, slim waisted, confident, and bare. The same freckles that spread across his cheeks dotted his shoulders and chest - fairer even than his face - and the port wine stain on his hand left drip marks part way up his arm. His cock, now almost fully hard, was pink inside a nest of ginger curls.

Cuthbert’s nose had healed nicely, crooked though it was, and he could breathe through it very well these days. For the first time in a very long time, he imagined touching not only his hand but also his mouth to another human body. He swallowed, and Jamie looked at his throat and moaned softly, bringing his hand to his cock.

“That’s . . .” Cuthbert swallowed again. “That pleases me. I’d best reward you with more to admire.” 

He unfastened his jerkin and hung his weapons over the back of the chair. He pulled off both his gloves and slipped his shirt over his head.

Jamie took in his body: over-lean, little other than muscle and bone. But, Jamie was undernourished, too; his eyes stayed hungry, and they ate him up. After taking their fill of his bare chest and abdomen, they lingered for a moment first on Cuthbert’s incomplete left hand and then on the crosshatch of narrow scars that decorated his arms. The oldest had faded pale, near invisible, but many still stood out, red, against his skin, and the most recent few bore scabs.

“Blood sacrifices,” Cuthbert explained. “Many magic spells require them. I prefer to be the source when possible. I am responsible . . .”

“But not for me,” Jamie reminded him. “Gods! You can fuck me if you want to. I have practiced both ways.” He leaned back further so Cuthbert could almost see his hole.

Cuthbert was shocked by the offer. That was too much. “Say thankya,” he managed, “but perhaps a smaller indulgence, instead?” 

Jamie nodded and adjusted back to his previous position. Patiently, he awaited Cuthbert’s proposition.

Still half dressed, Bert grinned and slid off of the chair down to his knees. He leaned towards Jamie’s cock, but Jamie caught his chin and coaxed him up until he was standing and leaning over him.

“Say thankya back again, but I’d much rather have that here.” He tilted Cuthbert’s chin towards his own face until their lips were but a finger’s width apart. He waited for Bert to close the distance.

Cuthbert did, tentatively at first and then boldly open mouthed. Kissing he knew. He had kissed Susan and Alain often enough in friendship, and, before Mejis, he had kissed more than one serving girl in Castle Gilead - forward girls his age or slightly older, who had giggled when he walked past them and followed him with their eyes. There was a time when he had looked forward to more kissing and to other things with gillies and with friends, but life and death got in the way. 

He stopped participating in the kiss. What was he doing? Two swigs of port wine did not an inebriate produce. Somewhere else in camp, Alain and Susan and poor Roland might be arguing still about the horrors of their past, and here he was, indulging.

Jamie spoke against his lips. “Cuthbert, you are not responsible for me.”

Cuthbert gasped at the reminder. Those words were more arousing than the combined force of all of Jamie’s compliments.

“You are not responsible for me,” Jamie repeated. “Here. Come here and be with me.”

Cuthbert pulled back far enough to look him in his earnest eyes. That big hand, scented now with musk, came up at last to fully cup his cheek. He leaned into its warmth and down into another kiss and climbed onto the cot so he could straddle Jamie’s naked lap.

Jamie was not touching himself anymore. Now, he was touching Cuthbert - his back and his face and his arms. Cuthbert reciprocated. His left hand he fed into Jamie’s hair, a pale almost red like Cuthbert thought the sand might look in a faraway desert he had never seen. His more useful right he caressed down the soft skin and hard muscle along Jamie’s side, thumbing the bumps of bones and scars that he encountered there.

“Let me . . . Will you let me?” Jamie’s hands had settled on his waistband.

Cuthbert sat up on his knees. His handsewn deerskin breeches opened up with laces, and he watched Jamie untie them, blushing as his own hard cock sprang forth.

“All the way off?” Bert suggested. The blacksmith had insisted on his nudity as part of his payment, and then, when he and Susan made love later in the dirt, he had been no more bare than absolutely necessary. This was different than both. There was no bandaged recent injury to make his left hand an impediment, no pokey rocks and sticks to break his skin, no need to shield himself from Jamie. He wanted his bare calves to brush the fine, pale hairs on Jamie’s thighs.

“If it pleases you,” Jamie answered. 

Cuthbert leaned back between Jamie’s legs until he was lying on his back, and Jamie laughed and peeled off his boots and breeches. Then he offered both his hands, and Cuthbert let him haul him back up to his knees so he could settle once again into his old position, this time skin to skin and cock to cock. 

Cuthbert played gently with both of their members for a moment, feeling their silky smoothness, letting them bob together and apart, his own gaze flitting back and forth between that mesmerizing sight and Jamie’s dilated, heavy lidded eyes. At length, he smirked and raised his right palm so Jamie could see it. Jamie placed his own left palm against it, just as Cuthbert hoped he would.

“You have much larger hands,” Cuthbert observed. “I reckon they are better suited.”

Jamie moaned again and kissed him, and then that big hand was around both their cocks, and Cuthbert brought both palms to Jamie’s freckled shoulders to hold himself steady as he looked down into Jamie’s eyes and came and as he shuddered in glorious, half painful overstimulation as Jamie used the slickness of his semen to enhance his own pleasure until he came, as well.

Another kiss, two, three, and Jamie’s breath upon his lips: “Stay here.”

Carefully, he eased Cuthbert off his lap onto the cot and strode, naked, around his tent until he found a rag and a water skin to clean them up with. Then, he returned. Just barely, they could sit on the cot side by side. 

Jamie dabbed gently at Cuthbert first and them himself and wiped his hand off last of all and brought the side of his forefinger up to Cuthbert’s cheek. His finger still smelled of their mixed release.

“Stay,” he said softly again.

Cuthbert shook his head. “I am dinh. I do not _often_ indulge. This cannot . . .”

“You are not responsible for me,” Jamie said one more time. He combed his hand through Cuthbert’s lank and greasy hair. At least in that state it did not tangle too badly.

Cuthbert nodded. “Yes. And that is why I must . . .”

“Tomorrow,” Jamie interrupted. 

Tomorrow everybody would be rested, and Cuthbert would meet Steven Deschain in council, dinh to dinh. He opened up his mind and felt Alain’s touch waiting to curl around it. “Safe, safe, safe,” Alain’s mind said. “Take comfort.”

“Aye,” Cuthbert agreed at last. “Tomorrow.”


	15. Jamie - in Love

The next morning, before the council, Jamie followed Cuthbert out onto the battlefield. It had been more beset by carrion birds than usual, and, in the face of such an eerie sight, the army’s exhausted menials had not attempted yet to claim the corpses of named men or fallen friends for pyre, burial, or ceremony. The birds parted before Cuthbert, but they did not take flight. One, which had been nearly underfoot, fluttered up at a near vertical pitch and sat upon his shoulder. 

Jamie, who valued silence more than the Cuthbert he grew up with ever had, trailed after him with care and watched in wonder as the strange young man who had agreed, at last, to share his bed the night before encouraged the bird from his shoulder to the back of his less favored hand and stroked its glossy feathers with his good one. It blinked at him with beady eyes and made a pleasant, dovelike, cooing sound before he raised his hand and it took flight and settled, fifty yards away, upon the almost unseen body of a man. It cawed it usual call, then, and, in a momentary rush of wings, all of its comrades in a ten foot radius, and all those in Cuthbert’s most direct path to the place, spread out to find new fodder. 

Cuthbert adjusted his course.

Now, Jamie did wish to speak. He hastened his pace so he was almost touching Cuthbert’s back and whispered, “You have some magic in you, also.”

Cuthbert laughed. It was a darker laugh than he had had in childhood, but Jamie found he liked it just the same. It traveled straight down from his ears to his prick. 

Some of the rooks cocked heads at them, but their voices did not cause the flock to scatter. 

“A very little magic, maybe,” Cuthbert said. He spoke softly, but far above a whisper. “There is more magic in the birds than in myself, inasmuch as they are beyond human understanding, which is the matter of magic, really. There is no trick to this, no secret power. I am kinsman to the forests and the fields, now. Years I have spent becoming part of them. The birds are part of them as well. Clever fellows, they are scavengers and chatty spies. Out of respect, I use their feathers in my arrows, and I leave them pieces of my kills. I am a killer but a friendly one, as killers go, if I may be so bold.” He stopped and turned to look at Jamie. He was smiling. In the light of day Jamie imagined that he could almost discern how his left eye focused upon his face with less precision than his right. “They like me.”

“And that is all it is?”

Cuthbert shrugged. He turned away and once again began his march towards the corpse. “I said they were beyond our understanding.”

Jamie stretched an arm out to stay Cuthbert by his shoulder before he could step beyond his reach.

Cuthbert stopped and turned again. He was still smiling; although, it was not a broad one. 

Jamie spoke: “I like you, too.” 

Taking a step forward into the other man’s space, he slowly moved his hand from Cuthbert’s shoulder to his neck and then leaned in to kiss him. He hoped it was as sweet for Cuthbert as it was for him.

“I . . .” Cuthbert began, and some emotion leaked into that stranded vowel. By the time of his next attempt, whatever hole had let his sentiment escape was plugged. “I recommend you not get too attached.”

Jamie laughed a gust of air out through his nose. His fondness for frank honesty extended to himself. He recognized that he had been attached since last he had encountered Cuthbert nigh eight years ago when they had fought a common enemy in the hills outside Debaria, and he had broken Cuthbert’s glamor, felt his knife upon his neck, and seen the afterimage of his smile burned upon his retina. He also recognized that what it pleased his mind to label, ‘love,’ might more accurately have been termed, ‘obsession.’ Cuthbert the boy had been familiar but never his intimate companion; he hardly knew Cuthbert the man. He would not be so cruel as to saddle the already overburdened object of his dubious desire with a fraught confession of affection. And yet, he had been waiting a long time, practicing so that he might be ready to fulfill whatever fantasy Cuthbert of Nowhere might have entertained of him. That there had been no fantasy at all was not a disappointment; rather, it was an opportunity. Now that they had finally met again, Jamie was determined to feed his addiction for as long as Cuthbert would allow, to dream that his obsession might soften into real love - that he might know the man. Survival was not, after all, impossible.

“We are all at war, Cuthbert of Nowhere. We are all familiar with the risks.” He gestured at the field of carnage all around them, full of Cuthbert’s birds.

“Maybe,” Bert allowed. He flashed a fleeting, perhaps half reluctant smile and continued on his way.

Unlike the stinking, half devoured corpses of the other enemies and allies strewn about the battlefield, Robert Allgood’s body had been picked almost completely clean. The tatters of his clothes were strewn with holes poked by sharp beaks, revealing white bones only occasionally spotted here and there with tiny bits of rancid flesh. 

It struck Jamie that the rooks liked Cuthbert very much indeed and that this captivating near stranger’s insistence that he possessed very little magic was, to his mind, ludicrous. Perhaps he could not cast spells like his friend, Alain, but whatever traditions of the ancient rangers he had gleaned from those same books and put to practice in the intervening years were nothing so mundane as the now clearly ponderous survival tactics Cort had taught them both when they were boys born to the gun. 

It was plain, now, that those frightening, dark woods inside and nearby Gilead could hardly classify as wilderness, and that the gunslingers must have abandoned much when, after who could tell how many years, Good Arthur Eld had led the wandering descendents of the Great Old Ones into a newly fertile land he called New Canaan and founded his city, Gilead. How much of the magic of the earth had those folk given up to manufacture the machines to forge new guns and make the old ones work again? So much that the scholars among them had, when the machines could make them paper from the trees, scribbled out the dregs of memories their children could not understand and given up on their old ways to name themselves the masters of the land.

Cuthbert removed his father's skull. Kneeling, he held it up to look it in the empty sockets of its eaten eyes. 

“‘Tis a pity a man’s skull is too heavy and cumbersome to wear around one’s neck.” Cuthbert smirked at Jamie, amused by a joke that Jamie could not understand, then carried on: “There is a long tradition that a jawbone carries magic, but it is a jagged curve to carry in one’s pocket, and I blab enough without an extra mouth.” 

Jamie suspected that, in spite of having taken off his head, the truth of it was that he was reluctant to further dismantle his dead father’s face, which, yesterday, had spoken words and looked at him with eyes just like his own. He did not think a comment was required.

Cuthbert laid the skull back down atop poor Robert’s vertebrae. “Instead, I will take from him something that I am missing.” 

He found the skeleton’s left hand and carefully removed the distal phalanges of its three long fingers, then sat cross-legged and withdrew a ring of tiny metal tools that hung along his belt. Lockpicks, Jamie recognized, and reamers, sharpeners, needles and drills of various sizes and shapes.

“You have been in cities some,” Jamie assumed, “and pilfered.”

“Aye, and purchased, too, and, much more often, salvaged.” With care, he drilled a tiny hole through each inch-long bone, then threaded them onto a leather thong that he already wore around his neck, from which four tiny loops of braided hair were hung, all blonde but one, a pale brown. “I can add you as well, if it would please you,” Cuthbert offered, looking up at Jamie, who had never sat. “Truth be told, I like you, too; although, we’ve scarcely met.”

Jamie hesitated. “You are not responsible for me.”

Cuthbert held his eye, a little smile on his face. He shrugged and started to tie his string of keepsakes back around his neck.

“Wait.”

Bert paused.

Jamie sat down. He drew his knife and sliced off a lock of his own rather unremarkable, pale ginger hair that should be long enough for Bert to work with. “As a memory of last night and this morning - if it pleases _you_.”

Cuthbert smiled sweetly.

Jamie melted, and the hot juice of him pooled around his groin.

“Oh, Jamie.” Cuthbert’s voice dropped lower, softer, and his smile was knowing and flirtatious, just as it had been when he had finally capitulated the last night in Jamie’s tent. “Oh, Jamie, Jamie, you please me very much.”


	16. Gabrielle - at the Council

Roland had difficulty eating on his own. His teeth were all intact, and his tongue operated properly, and even his lips fulfilled their function well enough, but his hands were a disaster. When Gabrielle had first returned to Gilead upon the news of his miraculous near resurrection, she had fed him chicken limbs, soft breads, whole carrots, and goblets full of salty broths - things that required little or no dexterity to hold - and he had managed. Now, those things were unobtainable. The entire army, noble general to insignificant footsoldier to camp follower whore, ate the same loose, chewy stews for every meal, and Roland did not do well with a spoon. 

He was proud boy, though. Bitter as he was, he showed no interest in giving up on life. Gabrielle doubted it had ever occurred to him to use the fall of Gilead as an excuse to die. On that day beset with suicide and slaughter, it had been Roland who had led them both to safety, directing Gabreille through the secret gunslinger tunnels and the city's most secluded alleyways, guiding a growing group of unarmed refugees beyond the city walls into the nearby forest. He had the blood and heart and mind of a leader, still, and since the fall, Steven had called upon him to assess the morale of the camp civilians, to keep a lookout with his still keen eyes, to watch the battles from afar, and to give blunt, unsentimental tactical advice. 

Proudly, he sat at his father’s side when he would council with a dwindling number of gunslinger peers, and, proudly, he grappled with each meal. With a loose, shaking fist, he managed an unsteady grip upon his battered spoon, and, every day, he would slowly extract the semi-solid chunks and duck forward to catch them in his mouth before he dropped them. Then, he could cup his bowl between his palms and sip the rest. Rarely did he lose patience, but, when he did, Gabrielle was there to spoon feed him as she had seen his nursemaid do in bygone days when he was very small, and she knew better than to say a word about it.

This morning as she watched him struggle with his breakfast, though, she wondered out loud, “Perhaps your friend, Alain, could change the food into a better shape for you?” 

“My friend, Alain?” Roland echoed.

“Well, I know that healing spells do not come naturally to him, but other things . . . it would not hurt to ask.”

Roland expressed his disagreement with a glare and went back to his battle with the stew.

“And what else did you know, Gabrielle?” Steven was leaning back on the hind legs of his chair. His voice and his expression were unkind. It was a sore point between them that she had protected Cuthbert and his ka-tet at Serenity, and now it seemed Steven had found a new aspect of that perceived betrayal to labor upon. 

“They all three shared a room,” said Gabrielle. “What went on behind closed doors was none of my business.”

Steven groaned and let his chair come to rest on all four legs. He rubbed his eyes and leaned his elbows on the little table in their big, family tent. “I did not need that image.”

“Nor did you need to stir up animosity between us all,” she snapped. “We all three share a room, also.”

The sound of Roland’s spoon clattering shakily against the side of his dented, tin bowl was the only answer. Their breakfasts finished, both parents watched their son maneuver a mushy hunk of gamey meat up to his mouth and chew on it. When he had swallowed, he cupped his bowl between both hands and said, before he raised it to his lips, “Bert used to worry you disliked him.”

Steven smacked his palm upon the table, and the spoons in his and Gabrielle’s empty bowls clanked. “He was right. It’s one of his most irritating qualities. I did dislike him, and I do not like him better, now, but I will prove the greater man and meet him for the good of all.”

“Greater than whom?” Gabrielle mused. “I believe it was he who suggested a council.”

“Than the enemy,” hissed Steven.

Roland set his bowl down with a decisive whack.

Steven stood up. “Shall we?” He lifted the flap of their shared tent, and Gabrielle followed her son into the smokey dawn. 

As they approached the oilskin contraption Alain and Susan and their children had unpacked out of a tiny, magic knapsack the previous night, Roland admitted softly, “I thought, if anyone, it would have been Cuthbert.”

Gabrielle did not need to ask what he referred to. She ignored Steven’s wordless grumble and asked, cautiously, “And did you think that because Cuthbert knew you lived it would be no one?” 

Roland shrugged - a rare gesture. Commitment to his personal convictions was not something that had burned away in Reap Night’s fire. That the appearance - and the words - of his old friends had made him doubt himself was strange but not, perhaps, unhealthy. Reclusive in spite of his advisory position, Roland rarely spoke to anybody but his parents, and, even then, he rarely spoke of anything but his opinions on the war. His reflections of this morning were unusual, and Gabrielle wondered whether he, like his father, had once found Cuthbert’s contrary assertions irritating, or whether he had missed them. Steven barked orders and corrections, and Gabrielle offered advice and comfort, but, for years, there had been nobody to laugh with Roland when he erred or call him, ‘idiot.’ Associates, he had, perhaps, but he did not have friends. His heart he had buried beneath his scars.

The tent that held the friends he used to have, whom ka and time and choices - his and Steven’s and Cuthbert’s and, yes, Gabrielle’s as well - had taken from him, loomed in front of them. It did not seem as tall as the regular army tents, nor quite so wide, either, but Gabrielle supposed Cuthbert’s ka-tet was used to living rough in close quarters. The children, at least, would remember nothing else.

As if on cue, Orlando slipped out to greet them before Steven had a chance to speak. Alain had felt them coming, Gabrielle presumed, or else the child, curious to glimpse his father one more time, had been peeking.

“Uncle Bert’s not back yet,” Orlando complained. He swept his eyes briefly over Steven and Gabrielle, but he gave Roland a long stare. “You can come and wait with me,” he decided. 

He held the tent flap as far open as he could. Roland took a deep breath, passed his father, and ducked through it.

“Best fetch Uncle Bert, then, hadn’t we?” Gabrielle proposed. 

Steven said nothing, but he offered his arm as though they were attending a courtly dance in Gilead, and they took a turn around the camp. Time and loss and awful mistakes and Roland’s frail condition had created something for Steven and Gabrielle that the contract of their union and the birth of their one son had failed to provide them: common ground. As a result, they bore each other rather better now and even sought each other's company; although, their interplay was not exactly tender.

“Didn’t think he’d do it, did you?” Steven murmured as he nodded to his troops.

“You must be more specific.” Gabrielle offered her own smile and nod.

“Thought your precious little cousin was too good to get down on his knees for young De Curry.”

Gabrielle swallowed the nausea that came with Steven’s words. He did not know about what Cuthbert had implied he’d had to do to get them weapons, and, she prayed, he never would, but he had certainly intended to offend. However, Jamie De Curry was, by all accounts, a decent man, and he had kept the truth of what had happened in Debaria a secret all these years. Cuthbert had gone with him willingly, and she guessed it had been just as willingly that he had stayed. If anybody deserved comfort half as much as Roland, it was he. “I am sure there is respect between them,” she said, offering her husband a bland smile.

Steven only grunted, which probably meant he agreed, and hollered, “Ho, De Curry!” They had reached the proper tent.

No answer.

“Allgood!” Steven tried. His voice sounded a little strained.

“Nobody inside.” The blacksmith had come up behind them. “Lovebirds holding up your morning plans? Pretty outlaw headed out an hour ago with the archery master at his heel like a trained bumbler.” He laughed. “I’ve seen a lot of people in and out of that there tent, but sai De Curry’s the one caught this time, I wot. That brazen little bastard’s gone and tamed your archery master and made himself your equal, too. Should have seen it coming.”

Steven stiffened. In Gilead such insubordination would never have been tolerated, but the army needed a smith, and this man was the only one left. “I’ll thank you not to name a good man we lost yesterday a cuckold,” Steven said coldly.

The blacksmith had the grace to look somewhat abashed. “And may he rest in peace. I did not realize the lad was allowed parents to insult.”

“That exile, such as it is, has been lifted.”

“Such as it is,” agreed Cuthbert. He gave one nod to Steven and Gabrielle and another to the blacksmith as he approached. “You are in my territory now.”

The blacksmith ducked his head. “Aye, that’s well understood.” 

Cuthbert smiled a thin, dark smile and walked off in the direction of his ka-tet’s tent. A few paces behind him, Jamie De Curry gave a fist to forehead salute to Steven, a polite nod to Gabrielle, and a long, hard glare to the blacksmith, to whom he had until now seemed indifferent. Gabrielle’s nausea returned. She caught the blacksmith’s eye and held it.

“I am an honest businessman,” he said. There was a gratifying tremor in his voice, which might have meant he was afraid of Cuthbert and his friends. Certainly, he feared them more than he respected Steven.

“Too honest,” Steven muttered. Oblivious to the significance of the exchange, he escorted Gabrielle away.

Inside, the new tent was surprisingly spacious and homey, much larger than Gabrielle had thought. Although Roland might have had to duck, the ceiling of the thing was tall enough for Steven to stand upright, but it had no furniture but hanging beds, so Steven was forced to sit on the ground across from Cuthbert while Susan, on Bert’s left, struggled to hold her daughter back from climbing into Cuthbert’s lap. At Cuthbert’s right hand sat Alain, at Steven’s, Jamie. Roland, who was usually at his father’s side, had chosen to remain some ways away next to Orlando, who was flipping through a little, familiar picture book he had laid out on top of the three famous tomes that had gone missing from the library. Gabrielle joined their group, but it was easy to see and listen. For a war council that might decide the fate of civilization, the meeting was far from conventional.

“When I say you are in my territory now it is a figurative expression,” Cuthbert began. “Both you and I and all our lot are homeless wanderers. Welcome.” He spread both his hands and smiled and then clasped them back together and went on: “As you well know, this land is claimed already, and its people have aligned themselves with Farson, which seems to happen everywhere you go. I will never join Farson, but I never intended to beg your allegiance, either, and I am not begging now.” 

“Indeed,” Steven agreed. “I thank the both of you for your assistance yesterday, but I was fair surprised. I would have guessed you all long gone from war torn In-World by now.”

Cuthbert nodded. “If there were hope for peace, we might be. As it stands, the five of us might flee the bloodshed for decades, and Lon might grow to bear his father’s father’s guns and wander, killing as the need arises, endlessly, the only gunslinger remaining in a dying world. That is no life. No, we are here because the war must end, and we can end it.”

“I have read those books. Have you made sense of them and found a spell to wipe out Farson and his allies?”

“Not exactly. The peace of emptiness is not what I prefer. Genocide and annihilation need not be total, I hope.”

Steven shook his head. “The people of this region turned my envoy away.”

“But did they kill him?”

“No. It was Robert who went.”

“Was it?” Cuthbert’s smile was wistful. He looked up at the oilskin ceiling of the tent. “Would I had met him there.”

Steven leaned forward. “You attempted an allegiance with them, first?”

Now, Cuthbert smiled, much more toothily, at Steven. 

“And they saw you?”

“They saw me because I got there long before my father did. Alain enchanted me to make me fleet of foot, and I ran, day and night, as light as I could travel, without even my jerkin and with no weapon by my hunting knife. I was admitted, and the lady general showed me every hospitality. An alliance with me and my band of exiles, or free passage for us, she was happy to negotiate, but she refused when I made overture for refugees of Gilead. I doubt it is without reason that the people here tell tales of the cruelty of Gilead’s taxman, of the conquests of her armies, of the mines mined out, the streams poisoned, their precious resources hauled far away so they were left in poverty and contaminate.”

Steven grimaced. “Not in my lifetime,” he said. It was well known that it had been many a long year since Gilead held sway over any but the nearest Inner Baronies. None but the most adventurous of independent traders had been out this far since before Steven’s grandfather was born.

Cuthbert shrugged. “That matters not. Two men who hate each other may put aside their feelings easily enough to come to an accord. Two peoples with generations of enmity? That is a different problem. And, can you truly say that, if she let you settle here, you would not try to turn her land of huts and marshes into Gilead renewed?”

Through his teeth, Steven grit out a concession. “I can say that I would do my best to lead along the guidelines of whatever treaty was agreed upon." He calmed himself. "And, if the war were over, there would be no need to settle here. What lies behind us is not complete wasteland, and who may know what lies ahead? Our maps, when we had them, were obsolete. Free passage would be plenty.”

“Well said. Me, you might convince, but the general is skeptical. So skeptical, in fact, she had no interest in your argument. By the time I arrived, she had already pledged to support Farson. He was more powerful, she was convinced, and she would rid the world of conquerors from Gilead.”

He let his words sink in. 

When it became clear that he would not go on until somebody pointed out the obvious, Jamie De Curry, usually so reserved, humored him with a small smile: “But Farson is behind us.”

Cuthbert smiled back. 

“Farson’s _army_ is behind us,” Alain corrected. “Get on with your story. We are all hanging on your every word.” 

He looked past Cuthbert to catch his wife’s eye. Susan smirked. 

“Quite right.” Cuthbert was in his element, now. “Farson’s army is behind us - far, far, far behind me, then, when I ran on ahead made magically fleet of foot. But, Farson himself was there, and the general invited me to meet him. ‘Poor lost boy,’ she must have thought, ‘abandoned by his people. He will see the light and join us, too.’ So, in came Farson. He is tall, but many of us here are tall. His visage is disturbing, ageless - hair too black and lips too full. I have worn glamors, and I know you know the feeling when you see through one: it seems as if you should have seen the face correctly all along. Looking at him felt like that. I knew that I had met him more than once before - his shape and posture and expression were familiar, but, when I realized where I knew him from, his features did not change. Who is John Farson, do you think?” He smirked and looked at Steven, Roland, Gabrielle herself. He raised his eyebrows as though she, especially, should know.

Gabrielle’s heart sank. “Marten,” she guessed.

Cuthbert went on: “‘Marten Broadcloak was a glamor,’ I accused, ‘and this is another, or else it is your real face.’ He complimented me on my observational skills - ‘you always were a clever boy’ and so on - and he smiled and encouraged me to take the general’s offer. I refused. I thanked the general, but I told her that I knew that man of old, that he was treacherous, and that I would not be his ally. Farson’s manner changed. His condescending compliments became derogatory insults, and he asked the general how I ought to be dispatched. Lucky for me, she took offense. She could kill me well enough herself, she said, and she would not have a man who came in peace struck down within her territory. In a show of her authority, she made John Farson sit and watch me eat a three course meal with her. Once, I advised her she was making a mistake - by pledging to him and by flouting him, also. ‘This will not end well,’ I warned. ‘Probably not for you,’ was her reply. I thanked her for her kind reception, and, after the food, I left. From the edge of her compound, Farson called after me, ‘Run, rabbit run, rabbit, run, run, run! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Goes the farmer’s gun!’ There was a tune to it that I cannot remember. His howling laughter has eclipsed it in my memory.”

“And what did you do?” asked Gabrielle.

“I ran. I ran until the magic wore off, and then I walked for a week with hardly a rest, my mind as tight as I could make it lest he find me in that way. When I was close, I opened up enough for Al to guide me in.”

“And Marten - Farson - he did not come after you?” Steven prompted.

“He did not, but he could have, I am certain. The man I met was not a lowly court magician. In power, he surely outstrips us all. Either his threat was merely was for the pleasure of my fear or he is looking forward to bringing us all down together.”

“Then you have played into his hand.”

“I do not think so. He is overconfident. A man so evil thinks of nothing good. It will not last, but, for a single moment, we can make Alain more powerful than he. That moment must be perfect. We must have high ground so that we can see them coming, and we must wait for them to muster all they can before the battle starts. For our peoples, mutual destruction may be easier than peace, but I intend to force the issue. Before we fight, Alain and I must be allowed our moment to attempt a spell to end the war, and, once it is complete, it must be Susan who shall go forth as your diplomat. These are my terms.”

“Not you?”

“No. As the mother of your grandson, Susan unites our groups. Mother to mother, she will meet their general. You may proceed from there.”

“And what about you?” Steven pressed again.

“What about me? This is not about me. It is not about you, either. Have I enjoyed my moment of advantage? Yes, but I am insignificant. This is about ending the war.” 

Cuthbert’s smile was gone, his expression deadly serious. Gabrielle noticed that, although Steven and Jamie and Roland and Orlando and even the squirming Patricia were all studying Cuthbert, Alain and Susan looked intently at each other. Not a single one of them was smiling.

Steven spoke. “I accept your terms.”

“Excellent." Bert grinned, and the grave atmosphere dissipated. He dropped Steven's gaze and turned to Susan's little girl. "Here now, Trixie, what is it you want?” 

“Braids!” she squealed.

Released at last from Susan’s grasp, Patricia seated herself in front of Cuthbert and began to describe the system of plaits she wished him to put in her hair. Cuthbert rolled his eyes and attempted to share an amused gaze with Susan, whose expression remained grim. Cuthbert made a face at her.

“Your mother does braids as well as I do,” he reminded Patricia. “Better, for all of her fingers work.”

“No, you have to do it, Uncle Bert.”

“Alright.” He kissed the top of her head, took off his gloves, and started combing his bare fingers through her hair.

Jamie excused himself to see to his archers and invited Cuthbert to join him at his convenience. He made a bow to Steven and departed.

Orlando put aside his picture book and opened up _The Magic of the Tower_. “Uncle Bert says this one was your favorite,” he said.

“I like _The Wind through the Keyhole_ , too,” Roland replied.

“Yes, but they’re going to talk about this.”

“How do you know?” Roland’s rasp dropped to a true whisper.

Orlando smiled, apparently pleased by the semblance of conspiracy. He whispered back, “Because I saw your father looking at it when he came in.”

“At the book?” 

Orlando shook his head. Very carefully, he began to turn the pages of the ancient tome. Even if his parents had made sense of some of it, the text was probably too dense for the child to enjoy reading yet. He paused on the same diagrammed pages that had fascinated Roland as a boy.

Steven turned to Alain. “This is a magically expanded space.”

Before Alain could answer, Cuthbert said, “Was that a question or an accusation?” He did not look up from little Patricia’s hair.

“It is,” Alain replied, ignoring his dinh.

“Will you tell me about it?” Steven asked, respectfully rephrasing.

Cuthbert smiled.

“You have read the books?” Alain prompted.

“Yes.”

“Then you know that interdimensional magic is heavily warned against. There are good reasons why. Now that the world has moved on, once you can feel the fabric of the world at your fingertips, it tears quite easily. This was not always the case. From what we have guessed from the text, before the Tower and the Beams and the fall of the Great Old Ones, it was difficult to travel between planes or expand spaces or build bags of holding, where the bag becomes a portal to a tiny bubble universe where you can stow your things.”

“It still is difficult to do those things," Steven argued. "Even when I was a boy, when the world had not moved so far on, a bag of holding was so rare that it was worth a fortune.”

Alain hummed a non-committal noise. To disagree he must be very powerful indeed. “Let us say it is less difficult than once it was. That is what the Old Ones built the Tower for. They set up perpetual gateways and a nexus and a set of Beams to replace the natural structure of the multiverse so they could make the film between the worlds thinner and poke through it as they fancied. It was a foolish plan with devastating consequences. Some things are not meant to be easy. Magic that redirects this world’s energy requires sensitivity, knowledge, and concentration; magic that disturbs the dimensional plane or makes large changes in reality comes at a cost. They did not want to pay, so they destroyed themselves. The fabric of reality they left behind is much too thin. To tear a hole in it is easy, but what will you find on the other side?”

“What have you found, Alain Johns?”

Alain leaned forward. Softly and slowly he said, “I have been very cautious. I have only tampered with existence on a tiny scale thus far, and each instance requires a blood sacrifice. The bag of holding required my own blood and quite a bit of it, but it is stable. Each time we set it up, the tent requires a small amount from any willing sacrifice.” 

He rolled up his left sleeve to reveal one particularly nasty scar and several more parallel, healed scrapes. Susan rolled up hers as well. She had fewer scars, but she had one very recent cut from when they had set up the previous night. Cuthbert did not stop braiding Patricia's hair, and he did not roll up his sleeves, either, but it was obvious that there were far too few visible cuts and faded scars on his companions' arms to account for years of sacrifices. 

Gabrielle swallowed hard.

“We’re not allowed to, yet,” Orlando pouted. 

He closed _The Magic of the Tower_ and picked up _The Magic of War_. It fell open to a two page illustration of a battlefield. In the center stood a wizard. From Gabrielle’s perspective at an awkward angle, upside down, it was impossible to tell friend from foe. Almost everything was red.

Steven glanced over at his grandson. He seemed just as disturbed as Gabrielle to hear how eager the boy was to bleed. "Why blood sacrifices?” he asked.

“Because we are asking the world to change for us,” Alain replied. “Beyond our own reality are worlds we never want to see and regions of unfathomable darkness." 

"Here there be monsters," Cuthbert put in. He looked up form Patricia's hair just long enough to shoot a glance and a small smile at Roland.

His expression, his position on the ground . . . It was with sudden clarity that Gabrielle recalled the dark eyed, skinny boy with comely features who once used to sit upon her parlor floor and speculate on what the old cartographers had meant when they had used that phrase to indicate the limit of their knowledge. Gleefully, he had described the nature of the monsters and the brave, chivalric heroes who would quest for their destruction. Roland had participated in this game only as Cuthbert's audience. Unimaginative himself, he had, nevertheless, always been captivated by the stories others could invent, and Bert's romantic, bloody tales had been no exception. 

Alain Johns, on the other hand, had never heard the tales on the parlor floor. With a deep frown on his round face, he stared a moment at his dinh, then turned his glittering, blue eyes on Steven. He finished: "To show respect, to pay the cost, however dear, is vital."


	17. Roland - Resurrected

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last: the bloody conclusion!

Lying, in constant pain, in his crisp white bed in the bright white hospital in the world Sheemie had dragged him to after he almost burned to death, Roland used to plan how it would be when he returned to Gilead. In those moments, it had been easy to ignore the hollow pageantry he had abhorred, the coldness of his distant father, the desperate sadness of his lonely mother, the way the world had moved on. What point was there in dwelling on such dreary things? Instead, he thought of someday walking upright through the gate with loyal Sheemie at his side. The gate guard would call his father, and he and his mother would come, reconciled, arm in arm to greet him. Oh, they might have to embrace him carefully - he never let himself forget the truth of his condition - but embrace him they would. And then there would be Susan, golden radiant, placing a careful kiss upon his tender cheek, and Alain, with his kind empathy, offering to help him bear the burden of his injury, and dearest Cuthbert, old enough, perhaps, to wear his father’s guns upon his hips, bowing formally before he, too, took Roland in a tender, soft embrace full of his sweet, sweet smiles.

Now, nearly eight years later, the warped reflection of this sickbed fantasy was resurrected in the weeks it took his father’s army to attain the highest point around, a place the old mapmakers named Jericho Hill. 

Here were his parents, who had transformed a marriage made of paperwork and sex and silence and betrayal into something that consisted mostly of cruel, snippy arguments and white knuckled hand holding. An optimistic person might have called it, ‘friendship,’ but Roland had come to realize he was no expert in the concept.

In truth, he had seen little point in making new friends since the death of Sheemie and the loss to exile and flight of Cuthbert, Susan, and Alain. Yet, here his old friends were again.

Here was Susan, slightly softer through the hips and breasts from bearing not only Roland’s child but Alain’s, but otherwise as golden radiant, as lithe and strong and vibrant as the teenage ranch girl, who had ridden away with his heart. Even the kisses he imagined had returned, but now they belonged to another man.

Here was Alain, husband to Susan, now, and father to a little child, grown burly rather than stout, and capable of magic unwitnessed in generations. If he had ever been inclined to use the empathy at the foundation of his skill to ease the pain of Roland’s injury, Roland himself had stymied that instinct with his own secrecy: that same secrecy that had encouraged Susan, ignorant of his survival, to fall in love with someone else. That it had been Alain she chose was jarring, for, in every way except his gunslinger upbringing, Al was unlike Roland.

Not like Cuthbert - Cuthbert, his oldest friend, his second in command, his second cousin. Cuthbert, who was lanky like Roland and tall, though not so tall and roughly masculine as Roland had been in his prime. Cuthbert, who was clever, also, and outspoken, and had served his dinh with loyal honesty and sharp wit and had kept a secret he despised for years because Roland had asked.

Here was Cuthbert, once again, whose adult masculinity manifested as an increased sharpness in his bony shoulders and his handsome face. Less androgynously pretty than he had been in his youth, Roland’s old friend was still strikingly comely, his attractiveness unmarred by his blatantly broken nose and odd, semicircular scar. Nobody’s second in command, he had had no bow for Roland when they met, and Roland’s callous greeting had forestalled any embrace. But, he did smile. He had a smile for all occasions now - a friendly one, a pitying one, a humorous one, a smug one, a sardonic one, a cruel one. He still had that truly sweet one, too, but it was three days before Roland earned it back again.

Each evening, alongside the targets Jamie and his archers set up nightly for their practice, Bert would assemble a closer, smaller one for Orlando to use. His bow was slightly smaller, but he used full sized arrows, and he shot well. Cuthbert would practice his own archery for a little while, then stand and watch Orlando like the proud father that Roland should have been. On the third day, Roland stood beside him.

“Even Cort never predicted such a gruelling schedule,” was his first attempt at conversation.

“Perhaps not,” Cuthbert agreed. His sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and two new cuts - fresh and fresher - marked where he had given blood to pay reality for allowing his ka-tet the comfort of their tent. Each day since the first one, the entire camp had been packed up and hauled across the land from dawn to dusk, then reassembled at a new site closer to the distant hill.

Orlando put an arrow in the bullseye and turned to wave a Bert, who smiled back and called, “Well done!”

“The energy of youth is boundless.” 

Cuthbert shrugged. “Lonny is accustomed to long walks.”

“I have not thanked you properly.”

“What in the world for?”

“For taking Susan out of Mejis, for raising my son.”

Cuthbert did not look at him. He watched Orlando’s careful shots. “To say that I did not do it for you would be a lie,” he admitted, “but I did not do what I did for you alone. And I left you there.”

“Only because I made the alternative impossible. You paid dearly for my mistakes. You kept my secret.”

“Now, _that_ I did for you alone.” Cuthbert did look at him, now, and there was that sweet smile, summoned, somehow, by the very matter for which Cuthbert had the most grievance against him.

“You cannot forgive me!” Roland exclaimed. His voice became a rougher but not louder rasp. 

“Roland, for the last time, I am not your bondsman. I can do whatever I wish. Life is short and full of horrors. I prefer to put an end to needless suffering.”

“You are too kind.”

“You and Al should form a club. I reckon Sue might join, and probably your mother.”

“And my father, too.”

Cuthbert was grinning, now. “Say true! He would put his name to anything that marked me flawed.”

“And Jamie?”

Cuthbert did not answer right away. His expression grew a little wistful, and he gazed across the shooting range at Jamie, who was correcting the form of one of the younger archers, only a handful of years older than Orlando.

“Give Jamie some time to form his own opinion on the matter.”

Jamie finished with his task and saw them looking. He raised a hand, his unstained one, and the pale skin of his large palm glowed like a truce flag in the twilight. He approached.

“Go with him if he offers, Bert,” Roland encouraged. Normally, Jamie went through lovers like the wind went through the tall grass on the plains - swiftly but not cruelly. He had even approached Roland once in his frank, casual way, and he had seemed unoffended when Roland, scarred and barely functional, had pointedly expressed his lack of interest. His attention toward Cuthbert was different, however; the wind had settled. Possibly, Jamie was too infatuated to admit that Bert was ‘too much’ anything.

Cuthbert looked for a long time at Roland’s burn scarred face. At last, he smiled again, sweet as ever. Roland tried to smile back. The stretch of the foreign expression stung his tender skin. Jamie gave Roland a formal nod and swept Cuthbert and his smiles away without a word. 

“I am jealous of sai Jamie,” Orlando commented. 

He was no longer shooting. Now, he stood at Roland’s hip, watching Cuthbert and Jamie weave together through the crowded, torchlit camp until they were obscured by darkness.

“Sai De Curry,” Roland corrected, turning towards his son. Parenting did not come naturally to him - although, it surely had to Cuthbert - and he was mightily uncertain what role he ought to play. Absent for so many years, he had no desire to sully his son’s upbringing with cold, awkward instruction. Perhaps, though, he could prove a helpful guide to a curious boy who had, until now, existed in relative isolation. “‘Sai’ goes with a surname or a title.”

“Oh. Sai Deschain,” he addressed Roland, then he pointed across the camp at Alain and Susan, who were sitting by a campfire. “Sais Delgado.”

“Alain’s surname is Johns.”

“It wasn’t for a long time, though. What is Uncle Bert’s surname?”

“Allgood.”

Orlando smiled. “It suits him.”

“Yes. You know that he is not your uncle?”

“It is a term of endearment. Uncle Bert is very honest and good at explaining . . . usually. He hides things, too. I think I always knew that, but I never really thought of it before we knew you lived.”

“I never meant to come between you. I made him make a promise to me that I thought would keep you safe. I told myself it was for you, but it was actually for me. I said Cuthbert is not your uncle because he is your cousin. Did you know that? Cuthbert’s father was my mother’s cousin, and so Cuthbert is my cousin, and he is your cousin, too.”

Orlando shook his head. “He never talks about his family because of the exile. Or, I guess he does because he talks about you. But, you and I will have plenty of time to get to know each other. I wish he did not want to spend time with his new friend, sai De Curry, when he could be spending time with me. Uncle Bert says jealousy is irrational. He says all feelings are irrational, which means we can’t help feeling them. ‘Recognize what you’re feeling,’ he says, ‘so it won't make you an idiot.’” He smiled, but there were tears in his eyes.

“You are more tired than you let on, are you not, Orlando?”

The child nodded. “I guess it’s alright if Uncle Bert wants to be seduced by sai De Curry at night as long as he comes back in the morning.”

“Seduced?” A little guiltily, Roland realized it had probably been he who introduced that word into his son’s vocabulary.

Orlando nodded again. “Mum made me ask Uncle Bert what it meant. I think she wanted to get back at him for keeping secrets because, when I asked, he made a face at her and blushed. He almost never blushes. He is good at explaining things, though, like I said.” He did not share Bert’s explanation of ‘seduced.’

“Cuthbert loves you. He will always come back in the morning,” Roland attempted to reassure his son. 

“You don’t know,” Orlando murmured almost absently. He seemed to drift into a sleepy reverie.

Together, they walked towards Susan and Alain.

As they approached, Orlando asked, “If you and Uncle Bert are kin, why are you more important?” 

Apparently the boy had been more contemplative than sleepy, but Roland was mystified by his conclusion. Once, Roland had been proud and whole and Cuthbert had been groomed as his man to command. Now, Bert negotiated with Roland’s father, and Roland himself had become inconsequential. “I am not,” he breathed.

“It is a matter of perspective, Lon,” Susan explained as she urged her elder child to sit beside her and curled an arm around his waist. “From Uncle Bert’s perspective, everyone he loves is more important than he is. That is his way.”

“Well, I don’t have to like it,” Orlando declared, sounding for all the world like Cuthbert would have at his age.

Roland met Alain’s eyes. It was plain Alain did not approve of Cuthbert’s selflessness, either.

“His interpretation of the role of dinh is unconventional,” Roland commented.

“Does that surprise you?” Alain asked, but he did not give Roland time to answer. “I’d best peek in on Patsy, lest she wake and wander. Are you ready for bed, Lon?”

“Not yet,” Orlando said. He leaned into his mother’s side.

“Good evening to you, then.” Alain departed.

“He left you alone on purpose,” Orlando confided, looking up at Roland with tired, blue eyes. “Pat sleeps like a rock.”

“We’re not alone,” Susan reminded him, “because you are still here.”

“Papa Alain did not insist.”

“And nor will I, curious boy.” Susan squeezed him and kissed the top of his head. She beckoned Roland to sit. “I have not thanked you for saving my life - and Lonny’s, though you did not know I had him with me, then.”

“I did not have a choice,” Roland replied.

Susan pursed her lips together. “You know that is not true. You could have left me there and fought your battle with your friends. You could have sent Cuthbert. He would have burned for you.”

“I know, but you were my lover, not Bert's. It pleases me he lived to lead you and to raise my son.”

Susan studied his face for a moment. Then, she nodded. “Well, I thank you for it.”

“I thought,” Roland stammered suddenly, “I thought he would have been your choice. Once I was gone.”

Susan smiled sadly. “Yes, so did I, at first. It is none of your business, really, but I did lie with him once, not long after his exile.”

“When Orlando was inside you?”

“Yes.”

“‘Tis a small wonder, then, how like they are.”

Susan narrowed her eyes at him.

“Is that true, Mum?” Orlando asked. “Is Uncle Bert my father, too?”

“No, dear,” Susan said. “It does not work that way . . . Roland Deschain, was that a joke?”

He shrugged and felt that stinging smile tug once again at his papery skin. 

Susan smiled back with her whole face. She shook her head. “It . . . I . . . Roland, I have been Alain’s wife for near six years, his lover for near nine. You and I had a matter of months. We did not know each other, Roland.”

“I loved you.” His soul felt raw and honest.

“Aye, and I loved you, as well, but that is not the same as knowing. I loved a tall, serious stranger, who taught my body what it was to want. I do not think I ever heard you make a joke.”

“I have not made a joke in a long time,” Roland admitted. “Jokes are not . . . I am not Cuthbert.”

“But you are his friend. I never knew you when you weren’t at odds with him.”

Roland frowned. “I am endeavoring to change that. It seems he has forgiven me, but . . .”

Susan interrupted: “Aye, of course he has.” 

“And have you, Susan Delgado? Susan Johns?”

She pursed her lips at him again. “I lay with Cuthbert once and only once. He . . . we both needed loving that day in particular. I love him, but we did not fall in love. What came with Al was slower, maybe stronger. He and I got to know each other.”

“And what you have, it was impossible for you and me?” 

“It is impossible to say, Roland. Bert has forgiven you. I have forgiven him. That is the end of it. Does the truth hurt you? I do not know you well enough to be certain. However,” she leaned towards him slightly, “I would like to.”

And, with that offering of peace and renewed friendship, the pattern of that day became the basis for a new routine. Each morning, Roland would break his fast with his parents and then walk with his son and Bert and Susan and Alain and their daughter until his weak, slow moving body could no longer keep up. Then, he would allow himself to be hoisted atop a quartermaster cart hauled by one of the army’s few remaining animals. 

Each evening, when they arrived at their new camp, Roland would rejoin his friends and give his blood to Alain’s tent. Too weak and delicate to help his parents to assemble their ordinary one, he could do that, at least. He made his bed there most nights, also, for, after his day walking and conversing with Orlando and his own ka-tet, and after supper and archery practice, Cuthbert would often retire with Jamie, and Roland would spend the dregs of the day with his son.

Soon enough, Roland began to dread the daily cart rides, which took him away from his companions. No longer did he treasure, as he had for years, the isolation they afforded. 

“I would have thought you happy to be rid of me,” Bert joked one day as he and Jamie hoisted Roland up into the slowly moving cart.

Had Roland’s feelings shown in the pocked wasteland of his face, or had Alain felt disappointment in his mind and told his dinh in secret? As a show of faith, since that first night he had not kept his inner thoughts so locked away.

“Never,” Roland answered truthfully. “I rue the day I wished you gone before.”

“Well, do not dwell too much upon it! That was the day I bested the famous Steven Deschain, and he has never got the better of me since.” 

Jamie De Curry caught Cuthbert’s slender hand and fit his lips around one bony knuckle before leaving to inspect his men. Cuthbert remained, jogging nimbly backwards so he could face Roland in the cart.

“A crucial turning point, indeed,” Roland agreed. Never had he understood the lifelong animosity between his father and his closest friend.

Cuthbert grinned. That day, he walked the whole trip backwards and regaled Roland with romantic tales of his adventures as a famous outlaw with his loving friends and loyal squire, Orlando, at his side. 

Another day, Susan lifted Patricia up to join him. The girl was too young and too fanciful for Roland to relate to, but it warmed his heart that Susan and Alain cared to entrust their child to him for even an afternoon. As content to sit in silence as to talk, Patricia made her own entertainment, and Roland watched in wonder as she slowly transformed a handful of dying, yellow grass into an intricate bouquet of flowers.

“You have your father’s gift,” Roland observed.

“Uh huh. But I do plants with Mum and Uncle Bert. Pa says that he is only good at killing things. He wants me to learn to make things live before I learn to make them dead.” The flowers in the bouquet wilted. Patricia made a face at them. “With plants, it works both ways,” she whispered. One by one, the flowers transformed again into new living buds, all different kinds and colors than before.

And, finally, on a day when the place they sought loomed tall on the horizon, Alain hobbled up into the cart beside him. “I may be heavy for the horse today, but without rest I’ll slow my ka-tet worse tomorrow.”

Alain’s limp seemed to vary greatly with his level of exhaustion. Sometimes, he hardly seemed to need his staff. Other times, he leaned heavily and unevenly upon it. 

“What happened?” Roland asked. It must have been an early misfortune that lamed both of his childhood friends, for they seemed more than self sufficient, now.

Alain furrowed his brows and blinked at him. “You do not know?”

“How could I?”

Alain opened his mouth and closed it. He looked over to where Cuthbert was walking with Patricia on his shoulders. A rook flew down and flapped in front of her, its caws mixing with the child’s shrill giggles until Cuthbert gave the bird a hand to sit upon. After a moment, he raised his arm above his head, and the rook flew off into the distance.

“They look like a storm, do they not?” Alain mused. “The carrion birds call us all to Jericho Hill. Some might reckon that they flock to Bert because he lives on borrowed time. Your father meant to beat him clean to death when we returned to Gilead without you. I objected, and he shot me. I did not lose my life because Bert jerked the gun off course.” He opened his right hand in a gesture that implied explosion near his left fingers.

Roland was horrified. “Who reckons that?” he whispered. 

“I thought it common knowledge,” Al admitted, addressing the wrong issue.

Roland was less than surprised his father had declined to mention the true circumstances of his friends’ exile. He clarified: “Who reckons that he lives on borrowed time? He is a strong, young man, a dinh of influence, surrogate father to my son, beloved by his ka-tet and his new lover. He has everything to live for.”

“We are at war, Roland,” Alain reminded him. “He has everything to die for, too.”

Roland looked at Bert again. Orlando was holding his hand. 

The next day, Alain walked, but he gave Roland _The Magic of War_ to study. 

“The fire destroyed everything but my eyes and my brain. Now you wish to finish the job?” Since it had pleased Susan before, Roland attempted humor.

Like most of Roland’s jokes, It was a poor one, but Al played along. He looked pointedly at where Susan was standing with Cuthbert and smiled. “I have to look out for my interests.” 

The book was as incomprehensible as ever, but it gave him something to do. Roland read and wished he had Alain’s innate ability and trial and error knowledge of magic or Cuthbert’s skill for twisting words and puzzles. All of his tenuous conclusions were as disturbing as the pictures, and still he could not fathom what Alain and Cuthbert meant to do to save them all. 

He would have his answer soon enough. When the land’s slope became steep, Roland relieved the cart horse of its extra burden. He slipped the cryptic tome into Orlando’s pack and leaned on Cuthbert’s arm all the way up the hill. That night, Cuthbert retired with Jamie somewhat earlier than usual, and Roland sat up late with Lon and Patsy so that Susan and Alain could spend some time alone. Just moments after Susan called them in for bed, however, Cuthbert slipped in, too.

“Good night, Trixie. Good night, Lon.”

Each child reached up for an embrace. Cuthbert squeezed Alain’s hand, kissed Susan’s cheek, and told Roland, “Budge over.” 

He likely smelt of sex and sweat - his own and someone else’s - but Roland's sense of smell was barely functional. He felt his solid warmth beside him, though, as bony sharp and strangely comforting as it had been when they had crept into each other’s beds as children.

The final morning, on the lee side of Jericho Hill, the camp that they had grown accustomed to moving stayed put. As dawn reached rosy fingers up over the hill, the whole of Roland's father's army and its followers assembled at the top. Below, in the wide valley, the forces of Farson and the many allies he had gathered in his long chase mustered. Even with the high ground, the last gunslingers of Gilead would stand no chance. 

At Roland’s side, Susan stood ready for battle - guns at her hips, machete in her belt, longbow over her shoulder, her quiver of mismatched arrows on her back. Her children stood close by.

“If you wish to fight,” Roland told her, “I will escort the children back to camp.”

“Say thankya,” Susan replied. “If it comes to fighting, I fear all of us may fall, but, if you keep a lookout for disaster, then the pair of them might run and hide and live the wandering life none of us wants for them. But, I have faith it will not come to that.” 

She turned her gaze to the hill’s stony pinnacle, not so far off, where Roland’s father stood with Cuthbert and Alain, gazing down upon the valley swamped with foes. An inaudible exchange occurred between the three, and Roland’s father withdrew slightly to stand by his wife. Cuthbert squinted up at the parliament of rooks gathering overhead then came towards Roland, smiling.

“Roland,” he greeted, “dear heart.” He took off both his gloves and, once again, rested his mutilated left hand upon Roland’s breast. There was something sad and sweet in his expression. He did not put his gloves back on.

Next, he knelt and embraced Patricia and Orlando, who had tears upon his cheek. 

“There is no need to weep, Lon,” Cuthbert reprimanded, softly.

“I’ll weep if I want to,” Orlando objected petulantly.

Cuthbert nodded, smiling still. He kissed Orlando’s light brown hair and rose. 

“I reckon I will weep as well, Bert,” Susan whispered. She reached for his face and kissed him on the lips, then pulled him into a tight embrace. 

Before he moved on, he placed once more, softer kiss upon her lips and rubbed his right thumb along her left cheek as if wiping away a tear that she was yet to shed.

Then, smiling more brightly, he approached Jamie De Curry. He ran his fingers briefly through his loops of ginger hair and kissed him on the side of his mouth, whispering, “Thank you for your love.” 

The smile he wore when he pulled back and looked in Jamie’s eyes was radiant, but, as he turned to face Alain, Roland saw his mouth harden to a determined line. There was no quiver of black arrows upon Cuthbert’s back, he realized suddenly. There was no longbow slung across his shoulder and no knife or slingshot in his belt. In fact, he wore not belt at all, no leather jerkin - only a rough shirt, threadbare in places, woven out of mismatched, undyed yarn. The gun that Robert Allgood used to wear was not strapped to his hip; it was at Susan’s - she wore both. Unarmed and unprotected, he began to walk back towards Alain.

“No,” Roland whispered. 

He had read that book. He had been paying attention when his father asked Alain about interdimensional magic and willing sacrifice. He had listened when Orlando had complained that he was jealous of Jamie, that he - like all the members of Roland’s imaginary club - did not approve of how selflessly giving Cuthbert was. How self sacrificing, rather. He had heard the careful words Cuthbert - and indeed all his ka-tet - were wont to use when they discussed the future. And yet, it was not until now that he began to understand what Cuthbert was about to do. 

“Stop!” he shouted, but his voice was raspy, and it did not carry on the wind. That had to be the reason why Cuthbert did not obey. 

“Jamie, stop him!” he tried next. Jamie was closer.

Oh, and Cuthbert heard, and he must have heard his first cry, too, and ignored it, for now he quickened his pace.

Jamie met Roland’s eye, and he, too, seemed to realize what was going to happen. He started forward, but what chance did he have to stop Cuthbert or hold him? Jamie was a bigger man - a little taller, broader through the shoulders, slim but not so delicately slender - but he was not significantly larger, certainly not faster, and Bert knew he was coming.

Roland looked up at Alain and pleaded with his eyes. Cuthbert had everything to live for, but Roland . . . was it not he who lived on borrowed time? 

Alain smiled. He held up his palm, and Cuthbert bounced back, hard, into Jamie’s open arms as though he had run straight into a wall. 

“What!?” cried Cuthbert. “No!”

Roland stepped forward. Soon he could see Cuthbert’s face. His nose was bleeding, dripping down his lips and chin and onto Jamie’s red stained hand. Now, it was Bert who was weeping, but he sagged in Jamie’s arms and did not struggle in his grasp.

“I would have burned for you,” he reminded Roland through his tears.

“I know. But you did not, and I am glad of it. Be glad, Cuthbert, and live.”

Head held high, Roland walked straight through the invisible barrier that had stopped his oldest, dearest friend without another word or backwards glance. He stood before Alain. 

“What do I do?”

“What do you want?”

“I want to save Cuthbert.”

“That is not enough. Open your mind and tell me more. I’ll know if you are lying.”

Roland could pass this test. He let every barrier within his mind relax and spoke what he hoped were true words. His own soul never had been fully clear to him. “I want a future for my child and yours. This time, I want my friends to live.”

“This time?”

Roland’s phrasing had come from his soul; he did not care if it was awkward. “I am not a wordsmith like Cuthbert. I want to give the world a future. I want the war to end.”

Alain nodded. “Perfect.” Gently, he reached up and touched the back of Roland’s head, urging it down so he could kiss his forehead. “Thank you,” he whispered. “This will probably hurt a great deal.”

Roland had expected a knife, but there was not one, only Alain’s hand on the thin linen of his tunic, chafing against the papery skin on his chest. Then, Alain began to speak, and Roland felt his thick hand slide inside him. The pain came in odd places - where Alain’s forearm disappeared into his chest, then in his back and shoulder and his throat as his intruding fist put strain on Roland’s organs. Then, the aching pressure extended down into his gut, his groin, his thighs, his toes, his fingertips, then up behind his eyes. In a moment, he would come apart. Alain closed his eyes and opened them again. He mouthed a final word, and Roland went to pieces.

There was a moment when the pain became exquisite. All of the sensations that had for years been dulled and swallowed by a constant burning throb awoke and then were suddenly eclipsed by glorious agony. His organs burst, and some of them burst right out through his stretched and shiny skin, and all the blood and slime of him sprayed out onto the earth and all over all Alain, who was left standing next to a pile of exploded man, holding what remained of his heart.

Somehow, Roland’s consciousness lingered for a moment, not in his annihilated body but in the place and in the friends he left behind.

In the valley, Roland saw Farson (Marten) advancing with a savage grin upon his face. His face was painted blue, his features different, but, in his post death euphoria, it was obvious to Roland that he was the same man, more evil and more powerful than he ever imagined. On his next step, Marten’s foot sank deep into the earth, and he stuck there for a moment, knee deep in the hard and stony soil of the windward hillside. Then, his body blew apart. Whole lines of his army followed. Here and there, only one soldier was left standing while, elsewhere, entire squadrons were unscathed. In Steven’s army, a few soldiers blew apart as well, showering their shocked comrades in gore. 

The spell was sparing those who wanted what Roland had said he wanted, Roland realized. That was why ‘to save Cuthbert’ was not enough. As nothing but a floating consciousness, he could feel it working now. When the matter of all those who did not desire a future and an end to war had been inverted, rearranged, their lives snuffed out, the complex, powerful magic Alain had called forth settled back to equilibrium where it belonged, and Roland went with it.

As he faded, he was sure he saw his parents clutching at each other’s hands, their faces pale in shock. He saw Alain, his fair face wet with Roland’s blood and tears of mourning and of joy. He saw Cuthbert, still in Jamie’s arms, not weeping gracefully now but sobbing uncontrollably as Jamie lowered him down to the ground and cradled him against his chest. For Cuthbert, tears of joy were yet to come, but Roland had succeeded; he was still alive. Confused, one rook lit upon the upturned toe of his right boot, another on his bent knee. They cooed in consultation and then glided over to what remained of Roland’s corpse. All over the battlefield, their fellows rained down from the sky.

Susan was weeping also. Head held high, she led her children past where Cuthbert was consumed by grief and ushered them to stand next to Alain. Solemnly, Orlando gazed down at Roland’s ruined body, now beset with birds, and his little sister picked up a handful of bloody grass and sprinkled it over his remains. By the time they landed, the blades of grass had become roses. At last, Susan kissed her husband on his bloody lips, tucked one of Patricia’s roses in her hair, and made a cross of Roland’s blood upon her forehead. She pulled a whitish rag out of her belt and tied it onto one of Bert’s black feathered arrows. Her bow and the rest of her quiver she left behind. Guns at her hips and flag of truce held high, she headed down the hill.

Consciousness wavered, dwindled, and resolved again. 

*

The gunslinger paused for a moment, swaying on his feet. He thought he’d almost passed out. It was the heat, of course; the damned heat. There was a wind, but it was dry and brought no relief. He took his waterskin, judged how much was left by the heft of it, knew he shouldn’t drink - it wasn’t time to drink - and had a swallow, anyway.

For a moment he had felt he was somewhere else, but of course the desert was tricky and full of mirages . . . 

He shifted his gunna from one shoulder to the other, then touched the horn that rode on his belt behind the gun on his right hip. The ancient brass horn had once been blown by Arthur Eld himself, or so the story did say. Roland had given it to Cuthbert Allgood at Jericho Hill, and when Cuthbert fell, Roland had paused just long enough to pick it up again, knocking the deathdust of that place from its throat.

*

But wait! Had it not been Roland and not Bert at all who had given up his life at Jericho Hill, in no small part so that Cuthbert could live - Cuthbert, who had raised Roland's own son? Why, Bert had never in his whole life laid a finger on that horn, which still hung fastened safely onto Roland's father's belt.

He glanced down at where his own hand touched the thing. His hand was wrong. Where were the amputated stumps? The stretched and shiny fingers of a young man burned beyond all recognition? This hand had whole and unscarred flesh, but it was wrinkled and sun damaged, veins protruding - the hand of a healthy but much older man. Of course Steven Deschain was gone - years, decades gone, as long, long gone as Gilead herself. And Cuthbert was gone, too. Vividly Roland remembered how his last, best friend had gone to his death with that horn in his hand. Cuthbert was beyond his help, but, someday, he might have other friends, another son . . .

The vision of Cuthbert, alive, had brought with it the notion he himself was badly burned, and, sure, his skin did smart, even beneath the fabric of his shirt. It must have been time to drink after all; the sun was unforgiving, and the notion that Bert and Al had lived to help dear Susan raise his son had been fancy brought on by the heat stroke, surely.

No, but Roland’s mind could not hold the two truths. He had the Tower to think about, and the man in black. The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed. That was the world as it was meant to be.

Roland blinked.

Before the memory of his last journey slipped away forever he thought one more time of Al and Susan and their child and his own lovely Orlando and how Cuthbert had smiled at Jamie and he hoped . . .

He more than hoped; he knew.

Their world would continue on without him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The End_
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> Text between the * asterisks * is Stephen King's.
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> Thank you for taking this twisted, bloody journey with me!


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